From Shakespeare and Dante to James Joyce and Margaret Atwood, writers have felt the need to draw on archaic narrative patterns. But if myths are just 'false stories', why do we keep telling them?

In this clear and lively book, Laurence Coupe organizes this vast and complex area of study by providing a two-stage account of mythic theory--discussing both mythology as a given body of narratives and the association between modernism and mythography. He argues that there is an intimate connection between myth, language, narrative, history and imagination, so we cannot begin to understand classic literature, contemporary film or popular song without first taking into account its mythic dimension.