Protean deities : classical mythology in John Keats’s ‘Hyperion poems’ and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion and The fall of Hyperion
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Authors
Steyn, Herco Jacobus
Issue Date
2011-02
Type
Dissertation
Language
en
Keywords
Collective unconscious , Archetype , Myth , Displacement , Allusion , Intertextuality , Epic , Science fiction , Collective consciousness , Weltanschauung , Ideology , Romanticism , Omega Point , Hegelian dialectic
Alternative Title
Abstract
This dissertation concurs with the Jungian postulation that certain psychological archetypes are inclined to be reproduced by the collective unconscious. In turn, these psychological archetypes are revealed to emerge in literature as literary archetypes. It is consequently argued that science fiction has come to form a new mythology because the archetypal images are displaced in a modern, scientific guise. This signifies a shift in the collective world view of humanity, or a shift in its collective consciousness. It is consequently argued that humanity’s collective consciousness has evolved from mythic thought to scientific thought, courtesy of the numerous groundbreaking scientific discoveries of the past few centuries. This dissertation posits as a premise that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s supposition of humanity’s collective consciousness evolving towards what he calls the Omega Point to hold true. The scientific displacement of the literary archetypes reveals humankind’s evolution towards the Omega Point and a cosmic consciousness.
Description
Citation
Steyn, Herco Jacobus (2011) Protean deities : classical mythology in John Keats’s ‘Hyperion poems’ and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion and The fall of Hyperion, University of South Africa, Pretoria, <http://hdl.handle.net/10500/4908>