A Study Of John Barth’s Myth Rewrite

After the Second World War,the world was devastated and full of crises.In face of the abnormal development of science and technology,human beings not only failed to be truly liberated from heavy labor,but also lost their personality,people’s right of free choice and living territory.The post-war western civilization not only suppressed human social existence,but also suppressed human biological existence.It is under this historical background that postmodernism,as an anti-western modern philosophical system,came into being.Since postmodernism broke away from the matrix of modernism,it showed the deconstruction and criticism of the western philosophical system.With the continuous strengthening of the exploratory and experimental nature of literature,postmodern novels continue to develop on the basis of modern novels,and gradually form a new era literature with anti-traditional,subversive and destructive characteristics,which essentially deconstructs the traditional writing mode,and enables the public to pursue cultural memory from the referential,open,fictional and fragmented text world,writes about humanity and rebuilds confidence.As the leader of postmodern novels,John Barth launched a deconstructive language game in the form of metafiction,maze consciousness and carnival,subverted the tradition by rewrite of myth,innovated the concept of literary creation,and explored the historical authenticity in inheritance and innovation,so as to reveal modern people’s profound spiritual crisis,Barth analyzes the emptiness and absurdity of contemporary social existence in the real world and the mythical world,which reflects the modern reflection on the essence of human existence.History provides fresh images for Barth’s creation,tradition provides typical materials for myth rewrite,and myth expands the territory of literary creation from the two levels of physics and spirit.The change of historical context and the innovation of literary tradition make the way of myth rewrite change constantly in multi-dimensional context.Myth contains the crystallization of a nation’s cultural tradition and ideology for thousands of years.It is rewritten for contemporary people with its rich historical sacrifice and huge symbolic system.Its value lies in contemporary character.Barth renewed the literary form by repeating myths in order to get out of the dilemma of creative exhaustion.However,Barth’s subversion and criticism of the previous text is not a simple rewrite in the traditional sense,but a realistic carrier that excavates the potential of myth and can deepen the prototype,creatively reconstruct the internal mechanism of myth and construct a fiction with reasonable meaning.In his reconstructed mythological picture,ancient and modern,history and reality,truth and fiction are juxtaposed vertically and horizontally in the staggered network of time,which not only gives new vitality to the ancient mythology,but also opens up the spiritual territory and aesthetic space for the innovative practice of literature and art.Due to the great significance of myth in the current historical and cultural context and Barth’s active and sensitive response to this issue in his creation,this paper chooses to explore Barth’s literary creation from the perspective of rewrite.An in-depth interpretation of postmodern theorists,including Barth,focuses on the following questions in their works:what is the world?How is the designed world constructed?From the three dimensions of text interpretation,artistic interpretation and cultural interpretation,this paper deeply studies the postmodern spirit and humanistic thought displayed in bath’s mythological text,and reveals the intention and concept of Barth’s mythological rewrite,that is,why rewrite the ancient myth?How to rewrite?What is the value and significance of myth rewrite?The first chapter is the research basis of the paper,which firstly combs the source and flow of myth rewrite,and defines the boundary between myth and history,the boundary between myth and legend,and the historical and literary function of myth,then explains the rich aesthetic and historical value of myth and the starting point of Barth’s rewrite of myth.From the perspective of text interpretation,the second chapter takes Barth’s three classic works as the main research objects,discusses and analyzes the tension between reality and imagination with historical thinking,discusses and reflects on the heroic model,grasps the essence of anti-hero mythology,and further reveals the tension between ancient mythology and current reality,historical consciousness and modern ideas contained in the text.This paper makes a multidimensional investigation on Barth’s myth rewrite concept and intention.The third chapter expounds the artistic techniques of John Barth’s myth rewrite.From the perspective of metafiction and collage,deconstruct history,the paper clarifies the relevance and distinction between history and text,and explains the problem of historical textualization.From the perspective of fiction and events,it analyzes the unique time mode and spatial structure of the text,and explains the historization of the text.From the perspective of mythological archetype and parody,it analyzes the modern interpretation of the framework model of classical mythology in Barth’s works,and forms a unified theme,that is,the construction of the real world.Then this paper analyzes the maze of characters,language and words from the perspective of intertextuality and irony,discusses the boundary between readers and authors,and reveals the game and carnival of discourse contained in Barth’s mythological text and the postmodern consciousness of casting Barth’s mythological rewrite.Based on Barth’s current mythological rewritten works,interviews and literary comments,the fourth chapter systematically explains Barth’s cultural concept of mythological rewrite from the perspective of cultural criticism,that is,to deconstruct history and observe the present for reshaping the soul of modern people and reconstruct ing the modern value system through myth rewrite.Finally,it analyzes the internal mechanism of the rewrite,reshape and reconstruct of Barth’s myth,so as to form a reference for the current people’s survival,creation and reading experience.It further reveals the purpose of Barth’s rewrite of myth and the essence of myth restatement in the 20th century.The fifth chapter demonstrates the influence and role of myth rewrite on Chinese contemporary literary creation and Chinese image reconstruction,and explains the Chinese acceptance and contemporary value of myth rewrite.