Abstract
In this article, I examine the various characterizations of myth in historical discourse and explicate the processes and mechanisms by which myth functions as a mediator of various tensions within historical discourse. The three principal distinctions between myth and history are drawn in terms of: truth and falsity; oral and written traditions; and finally generality and specificity. An analysis of these distinctions reveals that myth is a function of the problems within the historical discourse, with each mode of distinction corresponding to a particular problem within the discourse. The problems of truth, process and interpretation which pervade the historical discourse are contained and smoothed over through exporting their damaging association for history to its shadow discourse, myth. Consequently the historical discourse comes to be defined and validated through its difference from, and opposition to, its binary partner, myth. Yet it would be a mistake to view the concept of 'myth' as a unitary concept. Rather it should be understood as a fluid and provisional site which colludes to support the historical discourse through incorporating its difficulties and thereby silencing those problems. In a postmodern climate these distinctions between myth and history seem to dissolve because the problems lurking in the shadow discourse of myth are brought to the consciousness of the historical discourse and acknowledged. Such acknowledgement, made possible through the shifts in the balance of power of postmodern history over traditional history, announces the redundancy of myth's function as mediator of those tensions. This dissolution of myth is unlikely to be permanent however, since new problems within the historical discourse will be sighted and, depending on their threat to the historical enterprise, offloaded to myth. In this way myth will be reconstructed and again function to legitimate and validate the historical enterprise.