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Chapter 1 - Mythic Sensibility

from Part I - Myth/Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2024

Andrew Shamel
Affiliation:
Lincoln College, Oxford
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Summary

Certain stories act upon us. They shape the way that we see, encounter, and understand the world. A phenomenological approach to a narrative encounter with the world in terms of the mythic helps to illuminate a certain sensibility that mediates the world to human persons such that it is experienced as meaningful. Understanding the mythic in terms of a sensibility rather than in terms of a genre of literature or a form of cultural expression sheds light on how mythopoiesis is not a phenomenon restricted to archaic societies and the tales of either a bygone age or a culture or religion not our own. Among the most visible places of such mythopoiesis is so-called ‘mythopoieic literature’, fantasies that actively play with the sense of the possible, with narratives shaping the lives of characters, and what can be brought to the surface when meaning and being more closely and obviously co-inhere. A phenomenology of play, both in terms of the ludic fancy of the mythic and fantastic and the perception-shaping power of a game’s rules over the players, opens up the way that stories act upon our perception of the world and the meaning that we encounter.

Type
Chapter
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Theology and the Mythic Sensibility
Human Myth-Making and Divine Creativity
, pp. 15 - 37
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • Mythic Sensibility
  • Andrew Shamel, Lincoln College, Oxford
  • Book: Theology and the Mythic Sensibility
  • Online publication: 07 November 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009542593.003
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  • Mythic Sensibility
  • Andrew Shamel, Lincoln College, Oxford
  • Book: Theology and the Mythic Sensibility
  • Online publication: 07 November 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009542593.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Mythic Sensibility
  • Andrew Shamel, Lincoln College, Oxford
  • Book: Theology and the Mythic Sensibility
  • Online publication: 07 November 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009542593.003
Available formats
×