Discussion Topic Discuss the impact of television on myth, legend, and folklore is the impact a positive
one or a negative one? Are stories told on TV our future myths, legends, and
folidiore? You explored several methodologies about the study of myth. None of the
people who came up with these methodologies are alive today. What method would you
come up with to study the myths, folklore, and legends that have evolved in the
eighteenth through the twentieth centuries? American literary scholar Richard Atick, in his
book A Preface to Critical Reading, said, 'In the latter part of the 20th century, it is hard
for us to realize how important a part mythology played in the imagination of writers and
readers down through the ages. The gods and goddesses of Olymous, the heroes of
ancient legend were as familiar to the people who created the literature of the westem
word as popular movie stars are to us. Their names had the power to evoke rich
emotions, which sprang from the recollection of the wondrous stories in which these
figures participated. Unless the modern reader can somehow re-create for herself the
enctional experience a mythological reference brought to readers in earlier generations,
her reading of non-contemporary literature will lack much of the pleasure and
understanding it would otherwise possess Discuss this statement. Without an
understanding of myth, can we fully understand and appreciate noncontemporary
literature we can't then how can myth, legend, and folklore stay alive? Does it need
or can we surve as a culture without it?