Literature, Modernism and Myth: Belief and Responsibility in the Twentieth Century

Modernist literature attempted to discover through myth an underlying metaphysic to an increasingly fragmented world. In Literature, Modernism and Myth, Michael Bell examines the relationship among myth, modernism and postmodernism. Bell shows how modernists used myth to emphasize the contingency of all values. This anti-foundational element, Bell claims, enables myth to act as a corrective to the political claims of ideological critique. He shows how postmodern concerns with political and social responsibility have in fact been inherited from modernism.