Magic Mirror

Analyzes the theories of myth of Cassirer, Barthes, Eliade, and Hillman and offers an alternative original account of myth-making as an essential strand of cultural production.

In this book, Elizabeth M. Baeten analyzes the theories of myth propounded by Cassirer, Barthes, Eliade, and Hillman and juxtaposes the insights of these very different perspectives to form a coherent account of myth. She then shows that these theories perform the same function the authors ascribe to myth itself. Moreover, not only do the theories of myth function mythically; the myth embedded in each theory is the same: the telos of human existence is absolute freedom, an unbounded power to constitute the subjective and objective features of existence. The correlate of this myth of absolute creative freedom, Baeten argues, is that the truly human must transcend natural determinations. Baeten understands this to be a dangerous myth and offers an alternative original account of myth-making as an essential strand of cultural production demarcating the human process within the setting of broader natural processes.