Myths are transformed, modified and revised according to the needs of time and place, but in essence a myth remains unchanged, for it is not the fruit of a pure elucubration of the human imagination, but a concrete manifestation of certain primordial individual and social intuitions. Neuroscientists have studied the processes by which the human mind conceives stories and, although they have not yet succeeded in determining at what point in its evolution our species acquired the ability to imagine experiences, the circuits of this faculty have been recognized up to a point. Given that it seems impossible to study the precise cycle of the birth, evolution and transformation of the imagination, it might be useful to identify certain founding European myths and consider their reception and transformations in relation to different periods of European intellectual history.
The choice between myths is vast, but since we have to choose, we'll focus on eight myths that, in one way or another, illustrate characters that define what we've come to call Europe. The eight myths chosen are those imagined by Homer (Ulysses and Achilles), Dante (The Pilgrim), Cervantes (Don Quixote), Shakespeare (Hamlet), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein's monster), Goethe (Faust), Kafka (K) and Virginia Woolf (Orlando). We will also consider those of Virgil (Aeneas), Camões (Vasco de Gama), Lewis Carroll (Alice), Voltaire (Candide) and Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe).
Roberto Calasso, in his exploration of the meaning of myths, likened the myth to a branch of an immense tree. to understand it," says Calasso, "a certain perception is necessary of the whole tree and the abundant ramifications hidden within it. But the tree is no more, sharpened axes have felled it." We'll try to visualize the vanished tree through some of its living branches, which perhaps give the peoples of Europe a common intuitive identity.