The Dialectics of Myth

Aleksei Fedorovich Losev (1893-1988) was among the greatest Russian philosophers, thinkers, and classicists of the twentieth century. A contemporary of Mikhail Bakhtin, and a scholar of astonishing erudition, his work remained almost unknown to the public until the fall of communism in 1990. The Dialectics of Myth, published here for the first time in English, remains his foremost achievement. Setting out a provocative and spiritually informed account of the way that myth informs secular and religious ideologies, it challenges limited interpretations of myths as mere poetic allegories, primitive scientific constructs, or channels for religious dogma and political fabrication. Insisting upon the miraculous elements of myth, the book creates a powerful and readable defence for mythic experience as a genuine part of consciousness, reality, and being.