“Myth is depoliticized speech.”

— Roland Barthes , book Mythologies

Source: Mythologies (1957), p. 145

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Roland Barthes 39

French philosopher, critic and literary theorist 1915–1980

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“When I used [in his speech] the word silent myths it was for a personal reason. I mean that the relations of pictorial art to the formation of myths has to be silent, consequently not illustrative. In this part of Jutland where the life of the myth has grown strongest and is kept deepest for millenniums, here where I come from and where I have known the richness of the narrative imagination of the people, here I wanted to place a monument to the anonymous strength of the word, not to a single myth, nor to a single cycle of myths, because the myths of the Edda, of the heroic poetry, yes perhaps particularly the myths of the Kalevala, have inspired me like the myth which is to be created today in the people who are glad to tell, racy and fertile.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Quote from Jorn's speech at the library of Silkeborg, September l0th 1953 (translated from an unpublished Danish manuscript by Guy Atkins) ; as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum Articles by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255
1949 - 1958, Various sources

“Dream is personalized myth, myth is depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic”

Joseph Campbell book The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Source: The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), Chapter 1
Context: Dream is personalized myth, myth is depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche. But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problem and solutions shown are directly valid for all mankind.

“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

“Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.”

Karl Popper book Conjectures and Refutations

Source: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963), Ch. 1 "Science : Conjectures and Refutations", Section VII

“Better the myth of happiness, than the myth of despair.”

Michael Moorcock The Cornelius Quartet

The Cornelius Quartet, The Condition of Muzak (1977)
Source: The Mirror; or, Harlequin Everywhere (p. 786)

“All cultures … have grown out of myths. They are founded on myths.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Lecture 1B, 8:20
Mythology and the Individual (1997)
Context: All cultures … have grown out of myths. They are founded on myths. What these myths have given has been inspiration for aspiration. The economic interpretation of history is for the birds. Economics is itself a function of aspiration. It’s what people aspire to that creates the field in which economics works.

“The "flow of information," which is mostly misinformation, is actually a presentation of myths. And people are increasingly rejecting the prescribed myths & developing their own counter-myths.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), p. 97

“The true fairytales … come straight out of myth; they are, as it were, minuscule reaffirmation of myths, or perhaps the myth made accessible to the local folky mind.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

Source: Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in Mary Poppins (2007), Ch. 2, p. 39
Context: The true fairytales … come straight out of myth; they are, as it were, minuscule reaffirmation of myths, or perhaps the myth made accessible to the local folky mind. One might say that fairytales are the myths falling into time and locality … is the same stuff, all the essentials are there, it is small, but perfect. Not minimized, not to be made digestible for children.

“Atlantis?' Jason asked.
'That's a myth,' Percy said.
'Uh… don't we deal in myths?'
'No, I mean it's a MADE-UP myth. Not like, an actual true myth.'

'So this is why Annabeth is the brains of the operation, huh?”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“A writer is in the end not his books, but his myth. And that myth is in the keeping of others.”

V.S. Naipaul (1932–2018) Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry

"Steinbeck in Monterey" (1970), in Daily Telegraph Magazine (3 April 1970), later published in The Overcrowded Barracoon, and other articles (1972)

“Myth is depoliticized speech.”

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Roland Barthes 39

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