Event Title
Plenary: From the Faun's Bookshelf: Myth and Meaning
Location
Euler 109
Start Date
31-5-2018 7:00 PM
Description
The secret power of myth is in its ability to embody modes of knowledge and thought which the modern world has lost but desperately needs. Myth functions in the imagination, the meaning-making organ, and meaning is larger than mere propositions or language statements. In myth we encounter modes of thought that join thinking to experience, meld the abstract with the concrete, and incarnate Platonic essences in the images, objects and actions of stories. Myth makes possible an ancient mode of concrete thought by being a language beyond words, a mode of languaging whose vocabulary is the characters, creatures and plot elements of the mythic tales themselves. Myth expresses what is otherwise, by words, inexpressible and in so doing draws us closer to the kind of thinking of which Adam was naturally capable before the fall, the kind of thinking we’ll know again when we meet the Myth who became Fact face-to-face.
Event Type
Keynote
Plenary: From the Faun's Bookshelf: Myth and Meaning
Euler 109
The secret power of myth is in its ability to embody modes of knowledge and thought which the modern world has lost but desperately needs. Myth functions in the imagination, the meaning-making organ, and meaning is larger than mere propositions or language statements. In myth we encounter modes of thought that join thinking to experience, meld the abstract with the concrete, and incarnate Platonic essences in the images, objects and actions of stories. Myth makes possible an ancient mode of concrete thought by being a language beyond words, a mode of languaging whose vocabulary is the characters, creatures and plot elements of the mythic tales themselves. Myth expresses what is otherwise, by words, inexpressible and in so doing draws us closer to the kind of thinking of which Adam was naturally capable before the fall, the kind of thinking we’ll know again when we meet the Myth who became Fact face-to-face.
Notes
An interview with Charlie Starr recorded prior to his plenary session is available here. Originally recorded by William O’Flaherty for his podcast, “All About Jack." O'Flaherty is the author of The Misquotable C.S. Lewis and C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell.