The novel Children Of The Earth is about transformation. It uses Ovid's Metamorphoses as a metaphor for the processes which occur in the psyche of each character, and is based on Jungian insights into myth and alchemy. Archetypes that underlie the unconscious processes of all humanity are seen in the symbolism of three very different religious traditions, namely Greek mythology, the Hebrew Old Testament and Australian Aboriginal beliefs. I explore the ways in which these three great mythologies might have converged in colonial South Australia. The story deals with the troubled marriage of isolated settler couple, Hestia and Adam George, and the effects on it of three people who come into their lives. Itinerant German mineralogist Johannes Menge ( based on a real life pioneer ) is a self-taught, eccentric polymath, and a devout but unorthodox exponent of the Bible. In Jungian terms he fulfils the role of an archetypal, but flawed, ' Wise Old Man'. Menge represents nineteenth century Protestantism, albeit still trailing some arcane superstitions. His protégé, a disgraced young teacher of classics, calls himself Hermes, and represents the role of Greek mythology in European civilization. Reliving the life of the mercurial god in the antipodes, he becomes messenger, trickster and seducer. Unatildi, an Indigenous girl whom Adam finds in a burnt-out tree trunk, is an archetypal maiden. She introduces the Europeans to the mythology of their new land, as sacred for her people as the Bible is for Johannes Menge. Each of these three characters plays a part in transforming the marriage of Adam and Hestia, and each, in turn, undergoes a personal metamorphosis. Aboriginal women act as midwives at the birth of the love-child of Hestia and Hermes. Named Sophia, after the goddess of wisdom, the new child is thought to have inherited the miwi spirit of Unatildi's lost infant. On his deathbed, as Menge bequeaths his wisdom to his Australian friends, he predicts that Sophia will understand the sacredness of all spiritual life. Eventually Hestia and Adam find themselves changed by their encounters with the archetypes of myth. News of Menge's death on the goldfields gives them the courage they need to begin rebuilding an honest relationship. The novel is 107,400 words in length and is accompanied by an exegesis of 20,170 word, entitled Myth And Alchemy In Creative Writing. The exegesis describes the interactive process of researching and writing, as well as exploring the value of Jungian concepts for creative writing, and current issues of creating Indigenous characters. There is an emphasis on the Jungian approach to mythology and alchemy. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Humanities, 2006.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 1896. / Prefatory note signed: A. S. C. [i.e. Albert S. Cook]

The intention of this essay is to put the light on and to discuss if there is a connection between a pre-Christian creation mythology and naked rocks on prehistoric sacred places in Scandinavia. Archaeological as well as historical materials are studied. The historical material is mostly from Snorre Sturlasons Asasagan with the explanation of the creation of the world. In this story the world was built from the body of a killed and deposited giant named Ymer. Almost the same myth is told in all Indo-European countries. Asasagsan tells about the Gods and the people in the late iron-age. Sanda in Fresna socken and Helgö in Ekerö socken, both in Uppland and both in activity in late iron-age are used as archaeological example of places where naked rocks are used as some kind of altar for rites.

Can the female feel at home in nature, myth and on screen, realms where she is so often laid to rest? "Pictures in an Exhibition" is a pastiche that exposes popular culture and art historical tropes in which ambiguous signifiers have become lost in a chain of referents. An installation of videos documents durational performances—filmed, edited and performed by the artist unaccompanied—that are humorous, satirical, aesthetic, historical, philosophical and psychological. Making simultaneous reference to art history, mass media, literature and mythology, "Pictures in an Exhibition" exposes the conflicted condition of a postfeminist 'self' striving to arrive at an exhibition of subjectivity.

Anselm Kiefer was born in Germany, 1945—the year of Adolf Hitler’s suicide, and subsequently, the end of World War II. His own beginnings were shrouded by a national “repression” of history. This repression was at odds with Kiefer’s needs to establish his own origin. For this reason, the spirituality in his earlier work is often overshadowed by its subject—Nazi Germany. This thesis will look back on Kiefer’s work through the lens of mythology in an effort to re-evaluate his earlier art within the context of his works since 1990. From the 1970s to the present, Kiefer has drawn from mythology to find links between personal and universal human experience. We begin by examining Kiefer’s controversial Attic Paintings of 1973. In the Attic Paintings, German and Christian mythology helped Kiefer understand his origin as a post-war German artist. Kiefer then turned his attention to myths from outside cultures throughout the 1980s. We will look closely at three paintings from the 1980s that incorporate Greek, Judaic, and Egyptian mythology in an effort to understand Kiefer’s larger goals in broadening his mythological base. Following this discussion, we will examine two paintings from the 1990s and his 2007 permanent installation at the Louvre Museum. These selected works serve to illustrate how Kiefer presented his own cultivated, personal mythology under the stars in his still ongoing cosmic series. The 1990s mark Kiefer’s broadest expansion yet; in a sense, he went from “the attic to the universe” over the course of three decades.

The story of Gilgamesh has been viewed as an example of several different narrative genres. This thesis establishes how scholarship in English published between 1872 and 1967 has described Gilgamesh as a myth, or denied Gilgamesh status as a myth and discusses new the meanings that the context of myth brings to the story. This thesis represents preliminary work on a larger project of exploring present day artistic meaning making efforts that revolve around Gilgamesh.

This thesis examines the architecture and space simulated in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and argues that the hand which guides the design of virtual architecture and space in these games originates from the same primogenitor of traditional mythology. The simulation of the game-world and the performance of in-game elements which include, avatars, player characters, non-player characters (NPCs), and artifacts, is regulated by the semantics of an in-game narrative that maintains a core structure of hierarchical spaces and traditional and modified architectural paradigms. Hierarchical spaces and architectural interventions are used to curate a mythologically derived model of personal transformation known as the ‘Hero Cycle’ that is based on hermeneutic principles whereby the identity of the collective is required to understand the identity of the individual. As a result, this cycle of personal transformation relies on the integration of the individual with the collective and is a revitalizing process within society. While it is believed that contemporary (computer) role-playing games (RPGs) are built on the shoulders of early pen and paper (PNP) role-playing games, both the early PNP and later RPGs are in fact founded on principles of ritual movement through space, developed by traditional mythology to enact Hero Cycles and by ritualized religious worship, to symbolically enact mythology. Role-playing games can bring forth the benefits of the experience of mythological progenitors of cultural narratives and religious theology. In-game, a narrative is presented to players as the face of the collective identity of the game-world and incorporates many traditional (and modified) iconographic and architectonic typologies that support the semantics of game-play and the theology that ties the game-mechanics to the narrative.

This thesis examines the architecture and space simulated in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and argues that the hand which guides the design of virtual architecture and space in these games originates from the same primogenitor of traditional mythology. The simulation of the game-world and the performance of in-game elements which include, avatars, player characters, non-player characters (NPCs), and artifacts, is regulated by the semantics of an in-game narrative that maintains a core structure of hierarchical spaces and traditional and modified architectural paradigms. Hierarchical spaces and architectural interventions are used to curate a mythologically derived model of personal transformation known as the ‘Hero Cycle’ that is based on hermeneutic principles whereby the identity of the collective is required to understand the identity of the individual. As a result, this cycle of personal transformation relies on the integration of the individual with the collective and is a revitalizing process within society. While it is believed that contemporary (computer) role-playing games (RPGs) are built on the shoulders of early pen and paper (PNP) role-playing games, both the early PNP and later RPGs are in fact founded on principles of ritual movement through space, developed by traditional mythology to enact Hero Cycles and by ritualized religious worship, to symbolically enact mythology. Role-playing games can bring forth the benefits of the experience of mythological progenitors of cultural narratives and religious theology. In-game, a narrative is presented to players as the face of the collective identity of the game-world and incorporates many traditional (and modified) iconographic and architectonic typologies that support the semantics of game-play and the theology that ties the game-mechanics to the narrative.

The focuses of this paper are narrative structures and mythological elements in the video game Chrono Trigger. A qualitative method was used to code the game world's seven eras into themes of symbolism, quest-themes, and, characters. These themes were compared with Northrop Frye's archetypal myth theory from Anatomy of Criticism. The results show that each age relates to a season and moves due to the player's influence according to a cyclical pattern. Six out of seven epochs show high correlation to Frye's archetypal model whereas options such as to discard the main hero illustrates the player's control. The seventh era pictures a more female symbolism than the male dominant template proposed by Frye. A hypothesis is presented with the concept of a fluent surface which argues that the player manipulates the basic story to build a personal narrative. Furthermore, the hypothesis emphasizes that the specific game mechanics stimulates the player's sensitivity to the narrative elements when constructing an individual ideal story.

John Fowles¡¦s The Magus, as a metafiction, is designed to criticize the fictional writing in the context of inter-reflexive narrative. More than displaying his innovative writing style, Fowles extends the possibility of fictional writing with the application of spiral structure, allegorical rhetoric and the abundant mythological elements in this book. This thesis sets out to analyze the mirror-text and discuss how such a text reflects the symbolical meaning carried by the mythological symbols within the narrative, which, taken together, reinforce the significance of the hero¡¦s adventurous journey¡Xthe journey as a process of the development of the hero¡¦s personality. To elaborate the narrative strategy of this novel, in the first chapter, I shall discuss the function of the mirror-text and its relation with the primary text. Applying Mieke Bal¡¦s narratological theory to enhance my understanding of the mirror-text, I would bring forth the cumulative effect of the mirror-text. The arrangement of the mirror-text aims to decompose the text by projecting the deficiencies in the primary text. In Chapter Two, I shall, on the one hand, decompose the text by using Vladimir Propp¡¦s method of morphology. On the other hand, after introducing Joseph Campbell¡¦s analysis of mythology, I would discuss the mode and significance of the heroic journey in detail and explore how the motif of mythology structures the narrative of The Magus. After examining the novel both structurally and semantically, in the final part, I would put emphasis on the psychological condition of the hero. Jungian psychological study, which encompasses mythic symbols, would be adapted for illuminating the development of the hero¡¦s personality. The personal development is taken as an analogy in the novel. From the growth of an I-narrator, Fowles takes the novel as not only an aesthetic discourse with which he scrutinizes the reality he perceives but also a mirror upon which the author and the readers are allowed to project their ¡§lack¡¨ onto the ¡§maternal textual body.¡¨ Like the symbolic rebirth of a hero, the author and the text are reborn from the readers¡¦ interpretations.