Book: Literary Appropriations of Myth and Legend

The aim of the book is to examine the use of mythical and legendary themes in the selected poems by the four Post-romantic poets, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris and William Butler Yeats. It is based on two main premises. Firstly, world myths and legends are regional manifestations of the underlying universal patterns, and as such, lend themselves to a comparative study. Secondly, the specific realisations of these common themes are context-dependent, and thus, they may take on different shades as they are adapted and modified by the storyteller/poet retelling the myth.

The book consists of Preface, Introduction, three analytical chapters, and Conclusions. The purpose of the Preface is to delineate the modern theoretical concepts concerning literary myth criticism at the core of the present thesis, such as Jung’s ‘archetypes,’ Frye’s ‘mythoi,’ Lévi-Strauss’s ‘mythemes,’ and Barthes’s ‘empty signifiers,’ as well as theories taking into account the reception of myth in a given epoch. The Introduction shows how these notions are rooted in the nineteenth-century theoretical and literary stances concerning the nature of myth — on the one hand, the comparative approach focusing on the universal aspects of myth represented by Müller, Lang, and Frazer, and on the other, the creative approach espoused by the nineteenth-century men of letters, with a special emphasis on the views of myth in Tennyson, Swinburne, Morris, and Yeats.

These two complementary approaches to myth in literature as a realisation of a common motif through a literary appropriation serve as underlying concepts for the three main chapters, each of which focuses on the individual creative treatment of one motif in the works by all the four poets. The first chapter concentrates on the quest motif, which in the poems of Tennyson, Yeats, and Swinburne has become a symbolical representation of the poet’s search of inspiration and his poetic maturing. In Morris, on the other hand, the metaphorical journey into the realm of myth and legend gives the reader a chance to escape from the ugliness of nineteenth-century Industrial England. This nineteenth-century escapism is especially visible in the poems based on myths about Greek and Celtic Otherworlds, which constitutes the main theme of the second chapter. Whereas in Swinburne’s works, Proserpine’s kingdom is presented as a place of peace and respite from the passions, in the poetry of the other three poets, this respite turns out to be illusory, and the life in the Otherworlds is shown as sterile and purposeless. Thus, paradoxically, this seemingly escapist theme may in fact be interpreted as a call to action in the real world.

The third and final motif, common to myths and legends coming from different cultural backgrounds, is the sense of alienation and internal conflict experienced by a mortal in touch with the higher reality. Both Tithonus and Tiresias in the poems by Tennyson and Swinburne suffer from emotional paralysis as they cannot find their place either among the immortals or their fellow men. In Yeats’s early poem, glimpses from the world of the Celtic sídhe cause unease and dissatisfaction with the ordinary life in its protagonist. Finally, the works by Morris and Swinburne based on medieval legends combine the theme of alienation with the other two motifs of the quest and the otherworlds, as their main characters turn away from the world they know and embark on the quest which leads them into the supernatural realms, bringing them even greater sense of isolation. These myths and legends appear to reflect the position of the visionary poet torn between his allegiance to the world of imagination and the demands and incomprehension from his community.

Hence, the book shows how the four poets use the mythical and legendary motifs in their poetry to comment on the issues concerning art, faith, politics, and the poet’s place in society. For Tennyson, Morris, Swinburne, and Yeats, myths and legends were not just mere stories, but important sources of inspiration which provided them with a means to express their preoccupations and, perhaps inadvertently, the spirit of their times.

Key Words: Tennyson, Morris, Swinburne, Yeats, Victorian poetry, myth, legend, archetype, empty signifier, quest, otherworlds, outcast, prophet, escapism, art for art’s sake.

Ewa Młynarczyk