Myth and Memory in Medieval Literary Awareness

Abstract

Anne-Marie Thiesse testified that in letters, the echo of the “epic coming from the bottom of the centuries” is constantly heard. According to her, songs collected by Macpherson with the passion of the storyteller, are the substrates upon which the creation of literature transforms the great codes of different ethnicities into transcendental codes. This kind of search for the resurrection of epic ash in the letters could not carry the different ethnic and cultural feelings of the people, unless they were linked to the sign of their origin, i.e. by searching for the predecessors of a group who believes in some common values and cultivates them from generation to generation. These ancestors may be different: family members, a religious community, an ethnic community, or members of a religious community that unites the right and memories, or a cultural community, that unite some common symbols. In terms of the resurrection of “epic grace letter,” they constitute a social category distinct from other categories by the language, customs, myths, religion, etc. The myths in which they believe constitute the way how they treat themselves througout history. Our paper aims to discuss this relationship between the myth and literature and the memory for common values, which at some point appear as an essence in artistic works. The scope is to analyze the report that memory has with myths and the way how both affect literature. The paper tries to study a complex relationship between letters and myths, applying it to a pattern: The Medieval Literature.