This work is concentrated on the understanding of the mythical dimension of Gabriel Garcia Marquez works. This dimension is conditioned by authors eagerness to base his writings on folklore consciousness and folklore mythology, namely on a myth, which is created and lives in oral tradition and family beliefs. Marquez looks at myth through carnival culture, which by itself is passing link between primitive mythology and fiction (75, 60). To his novel “One Hundred Years of Loneliness” he adjusted the primitive mythology, he knew from his childhood: folklore, people beliefs, superstitions, witchcraft – all this set, which was still alive in Caribbean coast peoples’ consciousness. The “magical realism” literature was based on that. In this work the attention is directed to Creole, Indian, Afro-American mythology, which is reflected in Garcia Marquez writings. Reflections of Afro-Catholic religions (voodoo, Santeria) are also reflected (especially in his book “About Love and Other Demons”). The motives of time (dominating illud tempus) and pre-Christian space is also important. The world is only being created. So it is tried to look for the repeating of eschatological and cosmological myths. The repeating of birth myth in Garcia Marquez works is mostly expressed through specific relationship with death. It is specific feature in his works, determined by Latin America traditions and individual relation with surrounding world. Important role in Garcia Marquez writings plays such... [to full text]

This work is concentrated on the understanding of the mythical dimension of Gabriel Garcia Marquez works. This dimension is conditioned by authors eagerness to base his writings on folklore consciousness and folklore mythology, namely on a myth, which is created and lives in oral tradition and family beliefs. Marquez looks at myth through carnival culture, which by itself is passing link between primitive mythology and fiction (75, 60). To his novel “One Hundred Years of Loneliness” he adjusted the primitive mythology, he knew from his childhood: folklore, people beliefs, superstitions, witchcraft – all this set, which was still alive in Caribbean coast peoples’ consciousness. The “magical realism” literature was based on that. In this work the attention is directed to Creole, Indian, Afro-American mythology, which is reflected in Garcia Marquez writings. Reflections of Afro-Catholic religions (voodoo, Santeria) are also reflected (especially in his book “About Love and Other Demons”). The motives of time (dominating illud tempus) and pre-Christian space is also important. The world is only being created. So it is tried to look for the repeating of eschatological and cosmological myths. The repeating of birth myth in Garcia Marquez works is mostly expressed through specific relationship with death. It is specific feature in his works, determined by Latin America traditions and individual relation with surrounding world. Important role in Garcia Marquez writings plays such... [to full text]

Myth and Argument in Plato's Phaedrus, Republic, and Phaedo investigates the role played by eschatological myth in the arguments of Plato's Phaedrus, Republic and Phaedo. It argues that a reconsideration of the agenda followed by Socrates in each of these dialogues brings into view the contribution made by the mythological narrative to their argumentative line. Each of the three chapters of my thesis analyses the nature of this contribution. The first chapter argues that the myth occupying the central pages of the Phaedrus contributes to developing one of the themes addressed in the dialogue, namely a link between the divine realm and the activities thought by Phaedrus to be unrelated to the religious sphere. By showing that Eros fosters imitation of the gods, the palinode makes an important contribution to this topic. The second chapter proposes that the myth of Er and passage 608c2-621d3 in which it is included are an essential part of the line of argument of the Republic. I analyse the aims Socrates sets in Book 2 for his investigation into justice, and show that they include the description of the positive consequences of justice along with the benefits it causes in and by itself. By listing the rewards just people will receive from other people and the gods, passage 608c2-621d3 gives a description of the positive consequences of justice. The third chapter argues that the argumentative line followed in the Phaedo finds its culmination in the eschatological myth. Socrates expresses a hope for post-mortem justice in his defence of the philosophical life. To render it plausible to his interlocutors he needs to show that the soul is both immortal and intrinsically intelligent. After vindicating these notions, Socrates presents in the concluding myth the image of an afterlife governed by ethical principles.