The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Mythopoeia (mythopoesis)

Mythopoeia (mythopoesis): The creation or refashioning of myths or of a mythic framework for a literary work.

EXAMPLES: Eighteenth-century poet William Blake created a mythic framework that he wove into his poems. Modernist poet William Butler Yeats set forth his mythic system openly in a work entitled A Vision (1926). J. R. R. Tolkien sought to create an English mythology with his tales of Middle-earth, including the fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1954—55; adapted to film 2001—03) and The Silmarillion, a five-part narrative compiled and edited by his son Christopher and published in 1977 after Tolkien’s death.