“It begins to look as if there were an art, or gift, which criticism has largely ignored. It may even be one of the greatest arts; for it produces works which give us (at the first meeting) as much delight and (on prolonged acquaintance) as much wisdom and strength as the works of the greatest poets. It is in some ways more akin to music than poetry or at least to most poetry. It goes beyond the expression of things we have already felt. It arouses in us sensations we have never had before, never anticipated having, as though we had broken out of our normal mode of consciousness and ‘possessed joys not promised to our birth.’ It gets under our skin, hits us at a level deeper than our thoughts or even our passions, troubles oldest certainties till all questions are reopened, and in general shocks us more fully awake than we are for most of our lives.”
C.S.Lewis (In his forward to George MacDonald’s Phantastes)
There is something that C.S.Lewis often talked about in his essays and also when talking about some of his favorite writers, and that is what he called Myth.
Though when Lewis speaks of myth he often isn’t referring to the classic Greek stories (though some do fall into his particular definition.) Rather he is speaking of a type of story where the mere order of events is all that matters. The body of a literary story are the words, but for a myth the body is the imagined events and the words are just a means to tell it. If the myth’s events can be expressed silently with visuals, it’d impact us the same as it would through words. With myths, words and visuals are just there to bring the story into our mind and imagination, and from there we continue to ponder it.
Compare these two story synopsis:
There was a woodsman who was deeply in love with a girl, and promised to build her a better home before they marry, and so he set to work. However the girl’s mother was lazy and didn’t want her daughter to leave, so she paid a witch to interfere. The witch enchanted the woodsman’s axe and caused it to slip several times. The woodsman first lost his left leg, but he had the tinsmith replace it with tin and kept working. One by one he lost his right leg, both arms and even his head, but the tinsmith was able to replace them. With his new arms and legs the woodsman now worked harder than ever, but the witch thought of a new way to kill his love for the girl. The witch made the axe slip once more and it struck through the woodsman’s body. The tinsmith came to the rescue and made him a body of tin and attached the rest of his tin limbs to it. The woodsman was proud of his shiny, fully tin body and could now work unhindered, but his new body lacked a heart and he could no longer love, so now he did not care whether or not he married the girl. However one day while busy working, he was caught in a rainstorm and rusted in place before he could oil himself. He could no longer move, and was stuck there for a full year. In that time all he could do was think, and that was when he realized how hollow he had become. He recalled how happy he was while in love, but now without his heart and likewise his love; he was empty.
-The Tin Woodsman’s story in the Wizard of Oz.
One day Mole was spring cleaning but lost his patience and went outside, there we came across a river he had never seen before. He meets Mr Rat and they become fast friends, and begin visiting each other often. One day they decided to visit the local resident Mr. Toad, who has a reputation of becoming obsessed with the latest fads, and during their visit Toad discovered the new automobile. Later Mole gets lost in the woods, but is helped by Mr. Rat and meets Mr. Badger. Toad meanwhile starts buying automobiles and keeps carelessly wrecking them. To prevent Toad from fatally harming himself; Mole, Mr Rat and Mr. Badger put him under house arrest, but Toad escapes, steals a car, crashes, and gets arrested by the police. Toad finds a way to escape and in a series of misadventures he manages to return to the Willows. Mr. Rat informs Toad that his home was taken over by several creatures of the Wild Wood. Mole, Badger, Rat, and Toad sneak in and force the creatures out of Toad Hall. Toad throws a party and apologizes to all those he had wronged, the four friends continued to live their lives happily.
-Wind in the Willows
The first example, despite being a mere outline, can make a rather powerful impression on someone on first meeting. The second example on the other hand, while we know a wonderful story full of substance can be made with it; the mere listing of events doesn’t invoke nearly as much. The richness of Wind in the Willows comes from its writing and characters; I first saw an animation of it and it was enjoyable, but reading the book added so much more. In contrast, I was first told of the story of the tin woodsman, and later reading it myself didn’t add anything, the myth was already in my thoughts.
Myth in the sense that C.S Lewis gave it, has six characteristics;
1. It’s extra-literary, as mentioned already, words aren’t necessary; They are merely a means of relaying the myth to us. Those who see a good silent animation of the Little Match Girl share the same mythical experience as those who read the story.
2.The enjoyment of myth doesn’t depend on suspense or surprise, in fact at first reading it’s often felt to be inevitable, and the first reading is primarily valuable in introducing us to a permanent object of contemplation, and from there it continues to work on us, much like music.
3. We don’t strongly project ourselves into the characters, we may feel that their movements have a profound relevance to our own life, but we don’t imagine ourselves into their life. (I certainly don’t imagine myself as the tin woodsman in his story, but I can feel a relevance to it.) The story may make us sad, yet not just for the character, but for all of mankind.
4. Myth is always in one sense of the word, ‘fantastic’. It deals with impossibilities and preternaturals.
5.The experience may be sad or joyful but it is always grave. There may be humor in the story (Lord of the Rings certainly has it), but the events themselves are weighty.
6. The experience is not only grave but awe-inspiring. We feel it numinous. It is as if something of great importance has been communicated to us. You can see people’s efforts to grasp this something by coming up with allegorical explanations. Yet after all allegories have been tried, the myth remains to feel more important than they.
Lewis does say that “the degree to which any story is a myth depends very largely on the person who hears or reads it.” Much like how one can really enjoy Wind in the Willows and read it over and over while someone else will just read it once and never think of it again; Some won’t see a story as a myth and others will. Which can make talking about myth a little tricky, but hopefully the story of the tin woodsman served as a good enough example to begin recalling the myths you have encountered in the past.
One of the fun things about myth is that it can show up pretty much anywhere: Books, films, song lyrics, shows, video games, comics, wikipedia, parables, etc.
Personally I’m most familiar with games; Link’s Awakening, Koshi’s backstory in Touhou, Nergal’s full backstory in Fire Emblem Blazing Sword, even some Kirby games, just to name a few. The writing quality varies greatly from game to game, for some it’s hardly even there, but yet they still present a myth that cuts deep. The writing for Link’s Awakening is minimal, Kirby’s writing is generally just a few paragraphs hidden in the pause menu of a few boss fights; Yet people still talk about these stories and go on to make video essays and allegories about them.
This kind of story writing is fascinating to me. I hope to explore this topic more on this blog; So if you see me using the word myth, you’ll have an idea of what I am referring to.
If you want to read more on C.S. Lewis’ particular definition of myth, I definitely recommend checking out his own writing on it:
-His preface/forward on George MacDonald an Anthology. (or his slightly updated preface on some editions of George MacDonald’s Phantastes. (The editions will usually mention it.)
-His chapter on Myth in An Experiment on Criticism. (The first part of this chapter is somewhat isolated from the main topic of the book, so I think you could go straight to the chapter if you just want info on myth. (Though the book’s main topic is quite interesting too.))
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