Meaning and Being in Myth (review)

436Philosophy and Literature replaced by new constraints). Perhaps die finest moments in this book come in Fish's history of postwar MUton criticism (chap. 12) and in his rhetorical reading of Freud's case history of the Wolf Man (chap. 22). Here Fish offers the most compeUing demonstrations ofhis thesis and die most striking instances of his interpretive skUls. If there are limitations in Fish's analyses (and according to his position there must be limitations), they arise from his adoption of the linguistic turn. For Fish, interpretation is ubiquitous and persuasion fundamental in human interaction . Fish rightly insists that interpretation and persuasion rule the discourse of foundationalists and anti-foundationalists alike, but he faUs to note diat both groups are masters ofthe word whose power arises from their abUity to convert the nondiscursive relations and assumptions ofodiers into language. Nor does he fuUy appreciate the power specific to interpretive communities, which aUow bodi rational argumentation and rhetorical persuasion to take place by holding at bay the pressures of nonlinguistic forces. Persuasion may reign in interpretive communities, but there are plenty ofother communities in which nonrational and nondiscursive forces rule the day (witness contemporary China). Perhaps it is to this point—the relation between linguistic and nonlinguistic forces—that Fish wUl turn his future insightful performances. University of GeorgiaRonald Bogue Meaning and Being in Myth, by Norman Austin; xi & 239 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990, $28.50. Though the jacket promises a Lacanian analysis of dassical Greek mydi, Austin's "cosmology" may be better described as a creative syndiesis ofJungian and Heideggerian diought, profoundly religious in character; this is to say, Austin privUeges die Jungian hero-quest for self-realization ("destiny" over "history") and simultaneously invokes the "striving of Being" to realize itself in human consciousness. WhUe Austin employs Lacan, to be sure, the misleading book jacket may be said to reveal a current bias in academia against mythcritical and religious diought, in favor of deconstructive and Marxist modes of discourse. Austin, in fact, attacks Lacan's notion of the fragmented subject by caUing for a reinstatement of the subject at die center of a new cosmology (P- 64). Reviews437 For Austin, die mydi of Narcissus is more central to human diought than die Oedipal drama, because it demonstrates the inabUity of die ego to realize die divine ground of Being within the field of die odier. In diis sense, Camus's Meursault, from TL· Stranger, is offered as an example ofdie isolated individual who is unable to perceive Being, as it is projected in archetypal form(s), and finds instead only alienation—a necessary stage in the maturation process. The Biblical figure Job stands at the opposite pole from Meursault, validating selfrealization through self-discovery within the field of the other. Another way of saying this is that, for Austin, Martin Buber's "I-Thou" approach to Being, over and against the "I-it" worldview ofa Meursault, is a more cogent response to the human experience. Austin, like Northrop Frye and FredricJameson, envisions an eschatological future for the human community in which the blueprint may be said to exist already within the myths ofthe past. However, the vision presented here differs from those of Frye and Jameson in diat Austin provides us with a powerful answer to Marxist discourse of fragmentation and alienation by defending Jungian thought in terms of modern science and physics (pp. 50-64). Clearly, Austin's book may be considered a long-needed defense ofJungian criticism and literary theory. Because Jung is usually attacked most vigorously by those who have only a passing knowledge of his work, it is understandable that the author is careful to see that his book is not labeled "Jungian"; and yet, many wUl haU this study as an important contribution to Jungian thought, because it is the work of such a reputable and knowledgeable classics scholar. The discussions of Hesiod, as well as Herakles, are both cases in point here; this is to say, Austin is no mere theoretician, but a well-versed scholar whose earlier study of Homer, Archery at tL· Dark oftL· Moon (1975), remains a standard in its field. For students ofJung, diis study may...