The thesis investigates both how and why many of the best post-war poets have moved back to use myth and legend just when they seemed finally discredited. Chapter One briefly discusses the various scholarly theories of myth, and sharpens the critical terminology to be employed. It describes the personal myth-systems of Yeats, Graves and Lawrence and, conversely, the four systems most generally used by modern poets. The following four chapters study, in turn, four major approaches to the use of myth in poetry. Chapter 2 shows how Seamus Heaney' s work employs legend as archetype; the history of Ulster being erected as a timeless metaphor to illuminate the present Troubles. Chapter Three takes the poetry of Geoffrey Hill as an example of the development of newly created legend, culminating with that centred on King Offa of Mercia. Chapter Four examines Thom Gunn' s use of myth as archetype, showing how the timeless can be given contemporary force, either through existential philosophy or Californian psychedelia. Chapter Five explores Ted Hughes' creation of a new myth, a new reality, the crowning achievement. Chapter Six discusses why myth is still relevant, distinguishing its careful adoption into four modern stylistic traditions and its four major modes of relevance. Legend is seen as a form of place, myth as a form of time, and the best new poetry is recognised as utilizing both, a surprise invocation of the White Goddess.

This thesis looks at the role and function of the dragon in the saint's encounter with the monster in hagiographic texts, written primarily in the vernacular, between 1200 and 1500. Those connotations accrued by the dragon which are relevant to this thesis are traced from their earliest beginnings. Although by the middle ages the multi-valency of the dragon is reduced to one primary symbolic valency, that of evil and significantly, the evil of paganism, the dragon never loses completely its ancient associations and they help to colour its function within the narrative. The symbolic use of the dragon in vernacular saints' lives is generally consistent, although allowing for different didactic emphases. However, the two legends on which this thesis concentrates are those of St George from Caxton's Golden Legend and St Margaret from the Katherine Group. Each reveals tensions within the text when the dragon's role departs from the familiar hagiographic topos. Firstly, the role of the hagiographic dragon is identified by a comparison with that of the dragon in romance. Allowing for cross-fertilization, this thesis focuses on the significance of the hero's dragon-fight and the saint's dragon encounter to differentiate between the ethos of the romance and hagiographic genres respectively. Tensions are created in the hagiographic text when the romance topos of the dragon-fight is used in conjunction with the hagiographic dragon encounter, as in the legend of St George. Finally, in the legend of St Margaret, the dragon's appearance unbalances and unsettles the perspective of the narrative when its role and function are deployed in the promulgation of virginity.