Introduction and Definition
Mythopoeia is also the act of making (creating) mythologies. Notable mythopoeic authors include Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, William Blake, H. P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, Mervyn Peake and George MacDonald. While many literary works carry mythic themes, only a few approach the dense self-referentiality and purpose of mythopoeia. It is invented mythology that, rather than arising out of centuries of oral tradition, are penned over a short period of time by a single author or small group of collaborators.
As distinguished from fantasy worlds or fictional universes aimed at the evocation of detailed worlds with well-ordered histories, geographies, and laws of nature, mythopoeia aims at imitating and including real-world mythology, specifically created to bring mythology to modern readers, and/or to add credibility and literary depth to fictional worlds in fantasy or science fiction books and movies.
Mythopoeia are almost invariably created entirely by an individual, like the world of Middle-earth.
Read more about this topic: Mythopoeia (genre)
Famous quotes containing the words introduction and/or definition:
“Such is oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in
principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic
definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)