What is Mythopoeia?

The textbook definition of mythopoeia is ‘the making of myths’, taken from the Greek “muthos” [myth] and “poiein” [make]. In the literary world, mythopoeia is a narrative genre characterized by entirely new mythologies created by the author. The truth of mythopoeia lies more in what it is not than what it is. It has close ties to other genres like science fiction and fantasy, but the qualifications for a fantasy novel are much broader than those for mythopoeic work.

The term mythopoeia is so much more than what it’s relatively simple definition lets on - it is a genre, a literary movement, a writing style, an art - to some, even, a way of looking at the world. The term was popularized after J.R.R. Tolkien penned the poem ‘Mythopoeia’, a response to C.S. Lewis’s claims that “myths were lies and therefore worthless”:

The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.
                - Tolkien, Mythopoeia

Tolkien saw man as the sub-creator, living in a world created by God but capable of creating worlds of his own. And this is what a mythopoeic work within the genre entails - the creating of a whole world, filled not only with invented creatures, characters, lands and stories, but with a history and an existence compelling enough to be nearly believable. This created history is also known as a mythology, and it is one of the most important aspects of a mythopoeic novel.

 

In order to understand mythopoeia better, it is important to note the number of terms that it encompasses. Tolkien used the term ‘fairy-stories’, interchangeable with fairy stories and fairy tales, to describe his views on the mythopoeic work. There are other terminologies that include mythopoeia, such as fantasy, speculative fiction, the fantastical - and more simply put, myths, mythos, and mythology. None of these are exclusive to the true mythopoeia, but much of what makes up a mythopoeic work shares definitions with these terms. Mythopoeia also shares a history with these, since they are all offshoots of the original branch of ‘myth’.

 

Welcome to the world of mythopoeia.