From Shakespeare's "The Tempest" to Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", from Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" to the Wachowski brothers' "The Matrix", writers and film directors have made and remade 'myth'. Laurence Coupe not only offers students a comprehensive overview of the way that the concept of 'myth' has developed, but also shows how mythic themes, structures and symbols have persisted into literature and entertainment of the present day.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, post modernism, 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; and, demonstrates the growing importance of the green dimension of myth. Fully updated and revised in this new edition, "Myth" is a comprehensive introduction to one of the most important and fascinating aspects of cultural narrative, offering both a useful tool to students first approaching the topic and a valuable contribution to the study of myth itself.