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Time And Myth by John S. Dunne
Based on the Thomas More Lectures John Dunne delivered at Yale University in 1971, Time and Myth analyzes man's confrontation with the inevitability of death in the cultural, personal, and religious spheres, viewing each as a particular kind of myth shaped by the impact of time. With penetrating simplicity the author poses the timeless dilemma of the human condition and seeks to resolve it through stories of adventures, journeys, and voyages inspired by man's encounter with death; stories of childhood, youth, manhood, and age; and, finally, stories of God and of man wrestling with God and the unknown.
- GenresPhilosophy
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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About the author
John S. Dunne
29 books4 followersJohn S. Dunne was an American priest and theologian of the Congregation of Holy Cross. He held the John A. O'Brien Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 29, 2020
"guns don't kill people, but extended journeys of discovery just might"
In pages 32 to 43 of this edition, University of Notre Dame, 1975, Dunne reviews a modern day journey of the legendary/mythical character Odysseus. He begins by providing us a reading of Kazantzakis' The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel. What distinguishes Kazantzakis as a writer from someone like Dante Aligheri is the loss of concern for the ultimate and the transcendent. Instead the journey in a sense because its own end, its own purpose. This character, this new Odysseus, is not looking for home, but he is looking for a wide range of experience. A quick review provides the basic schema, something quite helpful if you plan to make the journey yourself at a later date, should one be provided for you.
1. What types does this Odyssey confront? First, the face of an animal, then that of the fighting man, then that of a lover, then the thinker, then the face of sorrow, then the serene face of reconciliation, and finally the smooth face, a transparency in which all might be and can be reflected.
2. The culmination of all experience comes with death, death as our best companion, our loyal standby. Death is always ready to fill our shoes. Do we accept that? That is the test that will prove who you are and what you stand for, now that you've been laid out in the coffin.
3. This Odysseus says to himself, "My friend, your voyages have been your native land." For Homer the sense war in Troy destroyed many a brave Greek. There was nothing left to do, but search for Penelope and assist a son in finding his maturity. But not here, not today, not in these times. Family life is now over. The real hero finds searching as his goal in life.
4. Meetings: Gotama Buddha; a prostitute, no need to recoil for the sake of morality, for here life and death are joined, despite the legal sanctions; a hermit; a figure like Don Quixote; an African fisherman, one who claims that the way of all the earth leads toward the sky. And, then, the South Pole. Death is the iceberg waiting for all searchers.
Dear reader, for this Kazantzakis, there is one choice in life: will you travel with God or will you travel with Death? The choice is yours.
In pages 32 to 43 of this edition, University of Notre Dame, 1975, Dunne reviews a modern day journey of the legendary/mythical character Odysseus. He begins by providing us a reading of Kazantzakis' The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel. What distinguishes Kazantzakis as a writer from someone like Dante Aligheri is the loss of concern for the ultimate and the transcendent. Instead the journey in a sense because its own end, its own purpose. This character, this new Odysseus, is not looking for home, but he is looking for a wide range of experience. A quick review provides the basic schema, something quite helpful if you plan to make the journey yourself at a later date, should one be provided for you.
1. What types does this Odyssey confront? First, the face of an animal, then that of the fighting man, then that of a lover, then the thinker, then the face of sorrow, then the serene face of reconciliation, and finally the smooth face, a transparency in which all might be and can be reflected.
2. The culmination of all experience comes with death, death as our best companion, our loyal standby. Death is always ready to fill our shoes. Do we accept that? That is the test that will prove who you are and what you stand for, now that you've been laid out in the coffin.
3. This Odysseus says to himself, "My friend, your voyages have been your native land." For Homer the sense war in Troy destroyed many a brave Greek. There was nothing left to do, but search for Penelope and assist a son in finding his maturity. But not here, not today, not in these times. Family life is now over. The real hero finds searching as his goal in life.
4. Meetings: Gotama Buddha; a prostitute, no need to recoil for the sake of morality, for here life and death are joined, despite the legal sanctions; a hermit; a figure like Don Quixote; an African fisherman, one who claims that the way of all the earth leads toward the sky. And, then, the South Pole. Death is the iceberg waiting for all searchers.
Dear reader, for this Kazantzakis, there is one choice in life: will you travel with God or will you travel with Death? The choice is yours.
March 24, 2021
Disappointing
This was recommended to me, as a middle-aged man facing forced early “retirement.” I was not impressed. It is very self-helpy, with lots of platitudes and vague metaphors, but never gets around to saying anything really concrete or meaningful. Also, the discussion of all the literary works (from Homer to Hemingway) is consistently superficial, naive, or just plain wrong. I understand he is just “using” these texts to make his point—but maybe that’s an indication that his point is itself naive and superficial, and maybe just plain wrong? I would not recommend this.
This was recommended to me, as a middle-aged man facing forced early “retirement.” I was not impressed. It is very self-helpy, with lots of platitudes and vague metaphors, but never gets around to saying anything really concrete or meaningful. Also, the discussion of all the literary works (from Homer to Hemingway) is consistently superficial, naive, or just plain wrong. I understand he is just “using” these texts to make his point—but maybe that’s an indication that his point is itself naive and superficial, and maybe just plain wrong? I would not recommend this.
March 10, 2015
Lots of words around storytelling and the nature of life on earth...
Odysseus travels as far as Gilgamesh, and meets many wonders on his way, but he does not seek everlasting life. He seeks only to reach home. It is as though the quest of everlasting life were now a thing of the past, as though man hoped now only to come home and live a mortal existence.
Odysseus says: "Endure my heart. Worse than this you have endured." His journey is the journey of a man who knows death and who seeks to win his way back though death to life.
The journey begins in wonderland. It is a wonderland of death, where death is not only a danger but a lure. He meets lotus-eaters, a cyclops, a master of winds, cannibals, a witch, ghosts, sirens, sea monsters, a goddess. At one point he meets the ghost of Achilles who tells him that he would rather be a slave among the living than a king among the dead. Finally he comes on a raft to the island of a seafaring people. They receive him well and bring him safely home at last on one of their ships. Now he has reached the land of the living; he has overcome the fascination of death.
Let us imagine a man kissing the earth. The kissing of the earth is the relationship a man has to the earth, to the things and times of life, when he is whole. By itself the earth - the world of flesh, the world of intimacy and of the limits and failure of intimacy - is a world of aloneness. It is the man kissing the earth, the man and the earth together in the kissing, that is the world of all-oneness.
The world of aloneness is a hell; the world of all-oneness is a heaven. The earth is a hell for a man when he holds apart from it, a heaven when he kisses it.
There are 3 moments in our story: first, the re is a moment of crisis, a moment of dividedness, then there is a moment of withdrawal, a moment of aloneness; and then there is a moment of return, a moment of all-oneness. This is like the story of Gotama's withdrawal and return. There is first the kind of solitude one experiences when one is with others but is so divided that one is unable to be wholly with them. Then there is the kind of solitude one experiences when one is by oneself, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy to be with oneself. And then there is the transfigured solitude one experiences when one is with others and yet with oneself, able to give them what they are and receive from them what one is. When we begin to speak of what they are and what one is, however, we are beginning to speak of what man is and are not far from speaking of what God is.
Odysseus travels as far as Gilgamesh, and meets many wonders on his way, but he does not seek everlasting life. He seeks only to reach home. It is as though the quest of everlasting life were now a thing of the past, as though man hoped now only to come home and live a mortal existence.
Odysseus says: "Endure my heart. Worse than this you have endured." His journey is the journey of a man who knows death and who seeks to win his way back though death to life.
The journey begins in wonderland. It is a wonderland of death, where death is not only a danger but a lure. He meets lotus-eaters, a cyclops, a master of winds, cannibals, a witch, ghosts, sirens, sea monsters, a goddess. At one point he meets the ghost of Achilles who tells him that he would rather be a slave among the living than a king among the dead. Finally he comes on a raft to the island of a seafaring people. They receive him well and bring him safely home at last on one of their ships. Now he has reached the land of the living; he has overcome the fascination of death.
Let us imagine a man kissing the earth. The kissing of the earth is the relationship a man has to the earth, to the things and times of life, when he is whole. By itself the earth - the world of flesh, the world of intimacy and of the limits and failure of intimacy - is a world of aloneness. It is the man kissing the earth, the man and the earth together in the kissing, that is the world of all-oneness.
The world of aloneness is a hell; the world of all-oneness is a heaven. The earth is a hell for a man when he holds apart from it, a heaven when he kisses it.
There are 3 moments in our story: first, the re is a moment of crisis, a moment of dividedness, then there is a moment of withdrawal, a moment of aloneness; and then there is a moment of return, a moment of all-oneness. This is like the story of Gotama's withdrawal and return. There is first the kind of solitude one experiences when one is with others but is so divided that one is unable to be wholly with them. Then there is the kind of solitude one experiences when one is by oneself, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy to be with oneself. And then there is the transfigured solitude one experiences when one is with others and yet with oneself, able to give them what they are and receive from them what one is. When we begin to speak of what they are and what one is, however, we are beginning to speak of what man is and are not far from speaking of what God is.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews