There are perhaps as many definitions of myth as of romanticism, but a renewed interest in myth as "authentic tidings of invisible things" is one of the most commonly remarked characteristics of early nineteenth-century literature. American writers from Emerson to Melville were very well read in myth and in mythic theory and were highly conscious of myth as a subject of special interest to the age. Richardson shows how our major writers consciously understood and used myth. - Jacket flap.