The Productions of Time : A Study of the Human Imagination

Myth criticism flourished in the mid-twentieth century under the powerful influence of Canadian thinker Northrop Frye. It asserted the need to identify common, unifying patterns in literature, arts, and religion. Although it was eclipsed by postmodern theories that asserted difference and conflict, those theories proved incapable of inspiring solidarity or guiding social action. The Productions of Time argues for a return to myth criticism in order to refine and extend its vision. With the aim of rehabilitating myth criticism for our time, Michael Dolzani sketches an anatomy of the imagination as demonstrated in the total body of its productions, including literature, mythology, the arts, popular culture, and religious and political texts. Dolzani situates a vast panoply of images, character types, plot structures, themes, and genres to better understand their purposes, their recurrences across broad spans of history, and their interrelations. Illustrating the relationship between mythology and history, The Productions of Time proposes a symbolic language as a way of enabling dialogue across ideological and individual differences. Arguing for the ethical and intellectual necessity of conceiving a unifying pattern that transcends differences, The Productions of Time demonstrates that imagination is part of the human inheritance, common to all, not just to poets and mystics. Cover THE PRODUCTIONS OF TIME Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Editions Cited Overture: Concerning Mandala Symbolism: The Symbol with and without Meaning Introduction: The State of Criticism at the Present Time PART ONE FIRST THERE IS A MOUNTAIN: THE VERTICAL AXIS ASCENDING I Revelation, or Imagination II Emanation III Creation IV Scripture as Creation V “Our Great Salvation from Above”: Traditional Mythology and the Point of Transcendence PART TWO THERE IS A SEASON: THE CYCLE I Paradise II The Fall III The Fallen World of Cyclical Time: Law and Sacrifice IV Tragedy V Comedy VI The Form of Drama PART THREE THE EYE BEGINS TO SEE: THE HORIZONTAL AXIS I The Affirmation of the Cycle II The Progressive Vision III What the Hammer? The Forge of Language IV The Ironic Cycle and the Clarification of Vision V The Recreation of Evolution: Hunting Cultures VI The Recreation of Evolution: Gathering and Planting Cultures VII The Mythology of Urban Civilization and Empire VIII The Progressive Vision of the Bible: The Trickster God IX The Progressive Vision of the Bible: Letter and Spirit X The Progressive Vision of the Bible: Typology XI The Progressive Vision in Classical Mythology XII The Middle Ages and Renaissance: Romantic and Spiritual Heroes XIII Shakespearean Tragicomedy or Romance XIV Summary and Prelude: The Historical Nexus of Romanticism XV In the White Giant’s Thigh: Romantic and Anti-Romantic XVI Prometheus Agonistes: German Idealism and Marxism XVII Romantic Internalization XVIII The Novel: The Realistic Horizontal XIX The Historical Novel and Science Fiction XX The Novel as Epic XXI The Lyric as Epic PART FOUR YOU WANT IT DARKER: THE VERTICAL AXIS DESCENDING I Decreation and the Descent Quest II Decreative Realism III Creative Non-fiction: Surface and Depth IV The Lyric: Surface and Depth V The Decreation Myth of Language VI The Otherworld: Traditional and Dark Romance VII The Sublime VIII The Urban Otherworld IX The Demonic: The Principle of Negation X The Pluralistic Afterlife XI Nothing XII Reversal XIII Satire and Apocalypse XIV Satire, Laughter, and the Redemption of Time Notes Index "The Productions of Time argues that it is time to return to myth criticism to refine its genuine vision from its ideological limitations. Myth criticism flourished briefly in the 1960s but was eclipsed by literary theories that asserted difference and diversity and were skeptical about common, unifying patterns. But theories affirming only difference and conflict proved incapable of inspiring solidarity or guiding progressive social action. The book sketches an anatomy of the imagination as evidenced in the total body of its productions, including mythology, the arts, popular culture, and religious and political texts, thereby suggesting a symbolic language as a lingua franca enabling dialogue across ideological and individual differences. The imagination is an expanded vision of reality that does not suppress the distinction between self and other, self and world, but unites them as what William Blake called Contraries. It becomes the only possible model of a just society that does not achieve unity at the expense of differences. The Productions of Time argues that the imagination is part of the human inheritance, common to all and not just to poets and mystics."-- Provided by publisher