NO MYTHS FOR MISTER GROTH, PLEASE

During the '88 screed recently revived online by Steve Duin, Gary Groth went after two writers who had written celebratory statements about Superman that Groth found "preposterous." I don't know whether or not the statements were any more preposterous than other reflections on the Superman character within the issue of AMAZING HEROES where Groth's remarks appeared-- which, as Duin mentions, was largely a celebration of the "Hero at 50"-- but I presume Groth might've found it a trifle outlandish to attack writers contributing to his own magazine, at least within the sphere of that particular issue.

Groth takes issue with Dennis Dooley for "Dooley's suggestion that Superman is representative of and equal to the philosophical principles espoused by Socrates"-- a position with which I'd agree, though probably for different reasons than Groth's--and with Harlan Ellison's saying that, "one of the unarguable criteria for literary greatness is universal recognition..." I would not agree with Ellison's statement either, again for different reasons.

Since I don't have the exact original text of either Dooley or Ellison before me, I have to assume that Groth's next leap, that of associating literature and myths, comes purely out of his own head.

"...which Superman is revered as a literary icon and successor to the Greek myths? Is it Siegel and Shuster's Superman? Wayne Boring's Superman? Republic Serials' Superman? George Reeve's Superman? Mort Weisinger's Superman? Kurt Schaffenburger's Superman? Denny O'Neil's Superman? Curt Swan's Superman? Neal Adams' Superman? Christopher Reeve's Superman? John Byrne's Superman? Or the countless other Supermen that DC has commissioned over the years?"

Did either Dooley or Ellison mention Greek myths? It's possible, but even if they didn't, others have touted Superman as a myth, though usually only in a loose metaphorical sense, rather than as part of a coherent myth-critical critique (like mine). But ironically, Groth's sarcastic summation of assorted manifestations of Superman confuses myth and literature far more than any myth-critic ever has.

If Groth had confined his sarcasm to Ellison's statement about Superman's being "literary," then his screed would have made some sense. The entire conceptual superstructure of "true literature" is based upon the notion that its works are almost conceived and shaped by one author alone. The notion isn't entirely accurate, as some critics laud the importance of Thomas Wolfe's editor and of Berthold Brecht's wife to works deemed authored only by Wolfe and Brecht. However, the few exceptions do not disprove the rule: most literature that belongs to the canon or aspires to belong to it is usually conceived and shaped by one author.

Against this tradition of high literature, low literature is indeed the haven of authors who may travel from one character or concept to another like so many jobbing actors. So if one accepts as a general rule that the concept of canonical literature is imbricated with the concept of sole authorship, then Superman cannot be canonical literature.

However, for whatever reason Gary Groth did choose to take a pot shot at the idea that Superman could be a "successor to the Greek myths."

And that statement shows me just why Mr. Groth failed his Mythology 101 class.

There is no general rule that archaic myths should have sole authorship.

Therefore, Groth's scorn toward this Superhero with a Thousand Authors makes no sense whatsoever.

In most cases we do not have any authors for our extant archaic myths, though many have been preserved through literary and artistic works, some of which have attributed authors and some of which do not. And in most cases those authors for whom we have names-- Sophocles, Firdausi-- certainly did not originate the mythic stories, but simply elaborated upon stories that were widely familiar to the populace.

Is the process by which mythic stories and modern popular stories are made identical? Certainly not.

But are there aspects in which the two are closer in the method of promulgation than either is to canonical literature's method of promulgation? No intelligent person could deny it.

Even the tiresome Marxist distinction-- "Superman was only invented to sell stuff"-- is not so distant from the practice by which archaic myths were promulgated in the days of oral literature. A wandering storyteller, earning his bread by going from community to community telling the stories of Hercules' labors, might be free to embellish this or that detail of Hercules-- but not to put aside the audience's expectations for a Hercules story. An archaic version of Eddie Campbell would not have lived long enough to promulgate his arty version of Dionysus.

I believe the only reason that Groth scorns any connectedness between Superman and archaic "Greek myths" is such myths, even though they are not in their raw form literature as such, possess a literary cachet. In his attempt to cut off any claim to such a cachet, Groth scorns any likeness between a hero with many authors and "Greek myths"-- but what he's really scorning has nothing to do with myth and everything to do with his notions of canonical literature.

There are some significant differences between archaic myth and all forms of modern literature, though they do not relate to the aforementioned method of promulgation. I'll be addressing this topic in a future essay, tentatively titled, "Rituals Open and Closed."