Making Myths

(29 February is the birthday of Superman, a modern myth.)

This post refers to Olaf Stapledon's Preface to his Last And First Men and also to both The Game Of Empire and The Night Face by Poul Anderson, thus to two, very different, future histories.

"A wall displayed a mural which puzzled her. It depicted a male and female human, nude, of the variant she had heard called 'Mongoloid,' emerging from clouds wherein drifted hints of stars, like a galaxy a-borning. 'An ancestral creation myth,' the man told her. 'To us it symbolizes - '"
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, pp. 370-371.

The speaker is interrupted before he can explain the symbolism. However, we understand that his community comprehends scientific cosmogony but also displays an artistic representation of an ancestral myth for its symbolic significance.

On Gwydion, Elfavy describes speech, mathematics, music, painting, choreography and myth as "languages." (The Night Face, p. 598) I would not call all of these activities "languages" but we take her point that they are means of expression and communication, thus, at least metaphorically, "languages."

She continues:

"'...Gwydion seems to be the only planet where myth was also developed, deliberately and systematically, as still a different language  - not by primitives who confused it with the concepts of science or common sense, but by people trained in semantics, who knew that each language describes one single facet of reality, and wanted myth to help them talk about something for which the others are inadequate.'" (ibid.)

But can myths be developed systematically? Are they not more organic, growing in the collective consciousness? Superman, in all his manifestations, transcends the character as he appeared in his introductory episode. Also, the Gwydiona frequently recount a myth, then explain its symbolism. Thus, it is questionable whether these myths express anything that cannot be communicated through ordinary speech.

Elfavy claims that the Bale time experience would be describable only "'...by a fusion of every language...'" (ibid.) but we eventually learn that it is describable simply as insanity.

Lastly, for now, Stapledon claims that his future history:

"...is an essay in myth creation."
-Olaf Stapledon, Preface IN Stapledon, Last And First Men/Last Men In London (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1972), pp. 11-13 AT p. 12.

For previous discussions, see here.