Myth

Title
Myth
Publication Date
2014
Author(s)
Giordano, Diego
McDonald, William
Editor
Editor(s): Steven Emmanuel, William McDonald and Jon Stewart
Type of document
Book Chapter
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Ashgate Publishing
Place of publication
Farnham, United Kingdom
Edition
1
Series
Kierkegaard Research Sources, Reception and Resources
UNE publication id
une:16643
Abstract
The Danish word 'Mythe' (in modern orthography 'Myte') generally refers to a purely fictional narrative, usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some popular idea, concerning natural or historical phenomena. In particular it refers to stories handed down from olden times regarding the lives of the gods. In its broadest sense, the word refers to any narrative containing fictitious elements, sometimes with the connotation that the narrative lacks veracity. Kierkegaard adopts the Latinized form 'Mythe'. In Kierkegaard's works the most frequent occurrence of the word "myth" (or "mythical") is in 'The Concept of Irony', where the concept is richly discussed in connection with Plato's dialectics, particularly his earlier dialogues, in a subsection of the first part of the book entitled "The Mythical in the Earlier Platonic Dialogues as a Token of a More Copious Speculation." Here Kierkegaard asks the reader to notice the ambivalence implicit in the gap between the dialectical and the mythical and identifies at least three elements of myth.
Link
Citation
Kierkegaards Concepts - Tome IV: Individual to Novel, p. 223-226
ISBN
9781472444639
Start page
223
End page
226

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