Inlets of the Soul: Contemporary Fiction in English and the Myth of the Fall

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Rodopi, 1999 - 321 páginas
The relationship of myth to literature has largely been overshadowed in contemporary theory by perspectives of a linguistic or sociological orientation and by relativist, sometimes negatory, stances on all searches for meaning. This book attempts to show that myth criticism and critical theories of more recent provenance are not irreconcilable. While taking into consideration some of the more influential tenets of structuralist, post-structuralist, Marxist and feminist theory, it applies a post-Jungian ('archetypal') approach to illustrating the perennial nature of a particular myth (the Fall of Man) in two main traditions (Mesopotamian and Christian) and in the contemporary novel in English.
The discussions of five major novels by William Golding, Patrick White, Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, and Wilson Harris not only serve to expand the mythological insights achieved in the first part of the book; they also suggest the incommensurability of imaginal, novelistic life with mythology's age-old intuitions about the human condition.
Myth criticism emerges from this book as an irreplaceable vantage-point from which man's lapsarian predicament can be scrutinized synchronically as archaic wisdom, contemporary anxiety, and post-colonial commitment to the building of a new human city.

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Índice

The Thief in the Night
15
The Perilous Leap
81
Mysterium coniunctionis
93
Patrick Whites The Solid Mandala
119
Lethal Forms
175
The Secular Postman
209
The Lapsarian Ascent
255
Conclusion
284
The Healing Art
291
Works Cited
311
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Página 62 - And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Página 71 - Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Página 77 - Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily : and thy righteousness shall go before thee ; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.
Página 71 - Consider the ravens : for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn ; and GOD feedeth them : how much more are ye better than the fowls ? And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?
Página 81 - Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind: His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or Milky Way...
Página 56 - For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men 1 and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.
Página 56 - Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
Página 56 - When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.
Página 68 - They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth : thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Página 68 - Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one,— as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one.

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