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Not so long ago, myth criticism was a very popular form of academic discourse. In its heyday myth criticism offered its acolytes a number of brilliant models to follow, apply, or reinterpret— models such as Frye, Cassirer, Eliade, and Campbell. Today, as Debra A. Moddelmog complains with some justification, myth criticism is in serious decline. Moddelmog's Readers and Mythic Signs: The Oedipus Myth in Twentieth-Century Fiction represents her effort to reclaim authority for an old and valued critical method. Moddelmog's book also reminds us just how prevalent the Oedipus myth is in 20th-century literature.
Of course, no one has ever doubted that myth plays a central role in literature. Presently, mythic thinking is often a part of more predominant critical forms such as structuralism, feminism, or one of the many forms of psychoanalytic criticism. As Moddelmog says in her Introduction, myth criticism most likely went out of style because many readers came to regard it as reductive. Since Moddelmog seeks to correct this misconception of reductiveness, it is curious that she would approach the Oedipus myth by breaking it down into 21 mythemes—concrete statements that