“Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed.”
-- Joseph Campbell
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“... The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or sky. Furthermore, it is never difficult to demonstrate that as science and history mythology is absurd. When a civilization begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums, and the link between the two perspectives is dissolved. Such a blight has certainly descended on the Bible and on a great part of the Christian cult.
To bring the images back to life, one has to seek, not interesting applications to modern affairs, but illuminating hints from the inspired past. When these are found, vast areas of half-dead iconography disclose again their permanently human meaning.”
~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Yep! The purpose of the poetry in myth is to engage the mind in something that is not explained any other way. It can illustrate points that are often difficult to understand in the cut and dry history of the ages. We can learn from history too, but poetry and myth can take that understanding a different perspective, sometimes a more timeless understanding. The myth is a helpful tool in a greater understanding that simple reality.
Myths are more helpful to humanity when taken in a literary sense, rather than a literal sense. Taking them literally removes the purpose of the story.
Very well said. I love myths in their literary sense. Thus my moniker Beowulfsfriend.