Laurence Coupe offers students a comprehensive overview of the development of myth, showing how mythic themes, structures and symbols persist in literature and entertainment today. This introductory volume:

• illustrates the relation between myth, culture and literature with discussions of poetry, fiction, film and popular song
• explores uses made of the term myth within the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, cultural studies, feminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis
• discusses the association between modernism, postmodernism, myth and history
• familiarizes the reader with themes such as the dying god, the quest for the Grail, the relation between chaos and cosmos, and the vision of the end of time
• demonstrates the growing importance of the green dimension of myth.

Fully updated and revised in this new edition, Myth is both a concise introduction and a useful tool to students first approaching the topic, while also a valuable contribution to the study of myth.

Laurence Coupe offers students a comprehensive overview of the development of myth, showing how mythic themes, structures and symbols persist in literature and entertainment today. This introductory volume: illustrates the relation between myth, culture and literature with discussions of poetry, fiction, film and popular song explores uses made of the term 'myth' within the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, cultural studies, feminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis discusses the association between modernism, postmodernism, myth and history familiarizes the reader with themes such as the dying god, the quest for the Grail, the relation between 'chaos' and 'cosmos', and the vision of the end of time demonstrates the growing importance of the green dimension of myth. Fully updated and revised in this new edition, Myth is both a concise introduction and a useful tool to students first approaching the topic, while also a valuable contribution to the study of myth.

Marina Warner is such a widely celebrated writer that it is a source of some wonderment that this is the first full-length study of her work. Perhaps that is because she is so hard to characterise: she is an English writer yet she has an international perspective on her country. She is a novelist who is rooted in traditional forms such as myth and fairy tale, yet who is wholly contemporary in her thinking. She celebrates the power of women to resist patriarchy, but it would be misleading to describe her as a feminist author. While her numerous works are taken seriously within the academy, she has resolutely remained an independent writer with no permanent affiliations to any university. Again, her vision is secular, yet in both her critical and creative writing she returns again and again to the idea of the sacred or supernatural. Above all, she has an equally strong sense of myth and of history, their interaction being the basis of her fiction and the focus of her scholarship. She is a wonderfully ambitious and challenging writer whose contribution is assessed through a systematic survey in Laurence Coupe's new book.

The object of this text is to provide a comprehensive selection of critical texts which address the connection between ecology, culture and literature. It aims to offer a complete guide to the growing area of "ecocriticism" and a wealth of material on green issues from the romantic period to the present. The most important aspects of this field are covered in depth. These include: romantic ecology and its legacy; the earth, memory and the critique of modernity; nature/culture/gender; ecocritical principles; environmental literary history; and the nature of the text. Included in this collection are extracts from leading modern ecocritics and figures from the past who pioneered a green approach to literature and culture. As a whole, the reader encourages a reassessment of the whole development of criticism and offers a prospect for its future. The book includes extracts from William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, William Morris, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Theodore W. Adorno, Martin Heidegger, Raymond Williams, Theodore Roszac, Claude Levi-Strauss, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jonathan Bate, Kate Soper, Terry Gifford, Louise Westling, Richard Kerridge and Jhan Hochman.

There have been books on the Beats; there have been books on the Beatles; but there has not been a book linking the two. Ditto Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan. Nor has there been a study of this range of writers and songwriters, in relation to a central vision. This, then, is the first sustained study of the spiritual revolution made by the Beats and of its impact on popular song. This book reveals the ideas behind the Beat vision which influenced the Beat sound of the songwriters who followed on from them. Having explored the thinking of Alan Watts, who coined the term 'Beat Zen', and who influenced the counterculture which emerged out of the Beat movement, it celebrates Jack Kerouac as a writer in pursuit of a 'beatific' vision. On this basis, the book goes on to explain the relevance of Kerouac and his friends Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder to songwriters who emerged in the 1960s. Not only are new, detailed readings of the lyrics of the Beatles and of Dylan given, but the range and depth of the Beat legacy within popular song is indicated by way of an overview of some important innovators: Jim Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Donovan, the Incredible String Band, Van Morrison and Nick Drake. Beat Sound, Beat Vision will appeal to all devotees of the Beats and of the songwriters who emerged in the seminal decade of the 1960s. It will also prove useful to students of literature, of pop music and of religion.

'Laurence Coupe's 'Green Studies Reader' provides an excellent overview of achievements to date in this emerging field . . . Coupe's anthology is a wide-ranging introduction to a thriving branch of literary study. The extracts are brief and well-chosen, and the wealth of introductory material is always informative. It should make a very good textbook, but it is also a stimulating collection for anyone interested in the fruitful intersection between environmentalism and literature.' - Annotated Bibliography for English Studies

KENNETH BURKE: FROM MYTH TO ECOLOGY is the first full-length study of a remarkable thinker's approach to those founding narratives, those essential structures of thought, which cannot be credited to any one individual but rather belong to the whole community. As such, it explores the way Burke developed an increasingly "green" perspective on the stories we tell one another in order to make sense of our world. In celebrating Burke's achievement, LAURENCE COUPE presents us with a complete picture of a mind which is comprehensive, compassionate, and "comic." For Burke, myth is the chief means by which humanity can come to terms with itself and its own dangerous ambitions. Hence to be alert to the way myth functions is to become responsible toward the planet that is our home. In emphasizing this aspect of Burke's work, Coupe argues that Burke's theory of myth is urgently contemporary. LAURENCE COUPE is Senior Lecturer in English at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he has pioneered the study of the mythic and ecological aspects of both literature and culture. He is the author of Myth (Routledge, 2nd ed. 2009) and the editor of The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism (Routledge, 2000). Other books include Marina Warner (Northcote House, 2006) and Beat Sound, Beat Vision: The Beat Spirit and Popular Song (Manchester University Press, 2007).

Warner is such a widely celebrated writer that it is a source of some wonderment that this is the first full-length study of her work. Warner is a novelist whose work is rooted in traditional forms such as legend, romance and fairy tale yet who is wholly contemporary in her thinking. This is a must read for students and fans alike.