Nuevas formas del mito: Una metodología interdisciplinar, estudios reunidos y presentados por José Manuel Losada

Myth: explicative, symbolic and dynamic tale that recounts one or more extraordinary events—which are personal and transcendental; it lacks historical testimony and is made up of invariable thematic elements, which are often presented in a situation of crisis; presents a conflictive, emotive, functional and ritual character, and always points out towards an absolute cosmogony or eschatology, which may be particular or universal. This definition, general, cold and indeterminate, requires a time, a space and especially a consciousness to come to life. Myth is not a mental construct unconnected to sociocultural vicissitudes: it bears—on its skin and in its entrails—the mark of each individual and of each society. Myth is a slave longing to be set free: in the same way it cannot be rid of its inherited form and content, it also cannot keep from dreaming of new forms and contents—the promise of an improbable liberation. “New Forms of Myth” depicts those forms and those contents in a new time and in a place. The novelty of the method lies in vindicating the coalescence of the traditional procedures of myth-criticism and new aspects that have not been systematically analysed yet by scholarly research, namely: globalization, immanence and consumerism. The book thus offers a modest contribution to the task of identifying, analysing and synthetizing the typology of myth in literature, fine arts and contemporary media. Hopefully, this will lead to a better understanding of our own consciousness in this disconcerting world