It isn’t often that you find a book that gives you a brief, intelligible way into an entire field of study, but in Myth: A Very Short Introduction, Robert A. Segal does it in style. As a reader, especially a student reader, you walk away feeling enlightened from the power dosage of knowledge. The book is designed to do this. The Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press has experts write accessible introductions to their fields, from Ancient Philosophy to Quantum Physics to World Music. In Myth, Segal provides a fascinating and near-comprehensive introduction to modern myth theory, in a space small enough to fit in your back pocket.
Segal notes that there is no discipline of myth, but that numerous disciplines possess theories of myth. The book is organized into the various broad categories of myth and science, philosophy, religion, ritual, literature, psychology, structure, and society. Despite the difficulty of teasing apart many of these related fields, Segal weaves the many overlapping touch points between chapters in a way that is clear and easy to follow. The complexity of myth scholarship notwithstanding, the book never feels oversimplified; the various approaches to myth are represented in such a way as to show their utility as a means for examining myth (Segal applies each major theory to the myth of Adonis as an example), as well as to present potential criticisms and limitations of the theories.
A very brief overview of the layout follows. Segal starts with theories examining myth literally in the light of scientific credibility and the responses that attempt to reconcile myth with science, as well as those which portray myth as primitive science. “Myth and philosophy” continues with approaches to their complicated relationship--are they the same, different, one subordinate to the other, unified, or separate? From philosophy, Segal moves to religion, and examines the re-characterization of religious myth and the treatment of secular phenomena as religious, both of which deal with the problem of the current fate of religious myth. This is followed by a look at the scholarship on myth and ritual, and how and why the two can be tied together. “Myth and literature” explores the theory of literature as possessing mythic origin, as well as the criticism of myth as story. The book then turns to the field of psychology, focusing on Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung, and their disciples. Segal then discusses the structural analysis of myth, and gives a long and detailed analysis of the Adonis narrative using structural criticism. From there he moves to examine theories of what role myth fills in society. The final chapter briefly discusses the future of myth scholarship and the possibility of reconciling the presence of myth in society with cinema.
Of all the chapters, I found the last one the least satisfying and comprehensive. While it provides a few interesting ideas, I would have liked to see more exploration of the notion of where myth scholarship is headed, as well as what areas contemporary mythologists are pursuing in the field generally. Segal does mention what particular theories and theorists do and do not do; however, he does not clarify which theories are taken more seriously by contemporary mythologists. Since he never purports to survey the field, but rather to survey theories of myth scholarship, perhaps this can be forgiven.
What the book does, in addition to providing a concise orientation to the scholarship of the field, is to show why myth scholarship is so important. Myth has been alternately embraced, defended, reviled, revised, abstracted, and renewed. As this book shows, theories of myth tie in to theories about humans and to the way that we construct, perceive, and dialogue with the world and one another.
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[Review length: 619 words • Review posted on July 3, 2007]