Download or read book Myth and Literature in the American Renaissance written by Robert D. Richardson and published by Bloomington : Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are perhaps as many definitions of myth as of romanticism, but a renewed interest in myth as "authentic tidings of invisible things" is one of the most commonly remarked characteristics of early nineteenth-century literature. American writers from Emerson to Melville were very well read in myth and in mythic theory and were highly conscious of myth as a subject of special interest to the age. Richardson shows how our major writers consciously understood and used myth. - Jacket flap.