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Mythic Realms: The Moral Imagination in Literature and Film
A sequel of sorts to Bradley Birzer’s Beyond Tenebrae (Angelico Press, 2019), Mythic Realms seeks to pursue excellences in the last hundred years of literature and film. Still rooted in Christian Humanism and Burke’s moral imagination, Birzer offers here a series of autobiographical vignettes, following which he analyzes fiction from Willa Cather to J.R.R. Tolkien to Stephen King to Frank Miller, and considers everything from the novel to the graphic novel. From the world of film he explores the works of John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Roland Joffé, and Christopher Nolan, while not neglecting popular TV series such as Star Trek , X-Files , Daredevil , and Stranger Things . In the end, though, after these many thought-provoking investigations, Birzer concludes that all things come down to reverence—both mythic and real—for the Blessed Mother and, especially, for her son, Jesus Christ.
228 pages, Paperback
First published April 14, 2023
About the author
Bradley J. Birzer
32 books59 followersProfessor Bradley Birzer holds a Doctorate from Indiana University in Bloomington. He is the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College, Michigan. He is the author of Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson (Christendom Press, 2007) and American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2010). He is Chairman of the Board of Academic Advisors for the Center for the American Republic in Houston, as well as a board member for Sapientia Press and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He is co-editor of the online journal The Imaginative Conservative.
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April 25, 2023
Brad Birzer’s latest book, Mythic Realms, is at once personal and scholarly, vulnerable and cutting, poetic and philosophical, leisurely and active. He has written a fine ode to many wonderful touchpoints with the human and divine elements in much of popular culture and gives both high praise and good, measured, fair criticism.
I have to admit my great pleasure in reading this book because we share a great love for Willa Cather (as a somewhat Nebraska native and a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln), the Inklings, Kirk, King, Moore, Miller, Hitchcock, Nolan, Snyder, the Duffer Brothers. Plus I have found in Birzer a great guide for developing my historical consciousness and my understanding of Christian Humanism through his work at Hillsdale College. My affinity for and familiarity with his work has given me a broader understanding of his thought. Once again, he gives great witness to his ability as a wise teacher, generous counselor, and man of great virtue.
As a historian and man of letters, Birzer connects to the great Western tradition and upholds its virtues for us to learn thereby. In so doing, he demonstrates his prowess as a teacher and guides us as we form and order our loves. Birzer points us to higher realms that draw us more into who we are as sons and daughters of the Father and what we can do to grow in relationship with the world and those around us.
Tradition
Christian Humanism has a fine advocate in Birzer and I have appreciated his guidance in gaining a deeper understanding of what that means in Beyond Tenebrae, along with his Hillsdale Lectures which I happily listen to and relisten to. In this work, however, Birzer goes to great lengths to showcase what popular culture, and some cult classics, have offered to us by means of forming our moral imagination. He cites Burke at length at different times to refer to the moral imagination and , towards the end of the book, he gives a fuller explanation of the moral imagination when he states, “What is it but the ability to see the best of a person, the very creative act of God, living within one’s soul and within the body, a temple of the Holy Spirit, no matter how much corruption we have placed upon ourselves because of our poor choices?”
These dual aspects of our nature allow us to ponder how we see God, man, and our relationship to one another and our Creator. Each chapter attests to the True, Good, and Beautiful in places that they wouldn’t likely be found. Yet, Birzer has the eyes to see and the ears to hear. He gives praise where it is due and offers fair criticism when it is due. As a man who teaches about the Greek virtues, he does a fantastic job of embodying the just response to the works, texts, and films he gazes upon in wonder.
Birzer’s every effort goes into how these works of art converse with the great conversation that man has had for millenia. He shows how we can see greater and lesser versions of these in what we encounter in the literature and film of our day. The criteria he employs refer back to how well a work of art forms our moral imagination—Lewis would find a welcome ally in ensuring that our desires are higher, better, and great enough to rise to the occasions where justice demands our right response.
Teaching
Throughout the book, Birzer goes a long way in showing us how we too can grow to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Of course, as a professor, he has had years of experience with plumbing the depths of matters and guiding others to do so. In each chapter, he fills out the vision of his readers with deep and fine clarity, attending to the multitudinous layers of meaning present to us.
This happens especially in his chapter on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. He showcases connections more discernible at a quick glance but also those that require more attention, thought, and experience. He offers such guidance too in his chapter’s on Robert E. Howard, Tolkien, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Daredevil, and Stranger Things. Of course, all his chapters reflect his keen sight and good ears, but those chapters are tall flowers that showcase his thoughts and personhood amidst the veritable garden of beauty he offers. I highlight those chapters as well since they have also led me to ponder them at length and these are some of my favorites as well.
As all great teachers do, Birzer offers many types that point to the things above, those permanent, beautiful, lasting things worth our time and attention to behold, attend to, and wonder at. There are a few moments when he hints at his cynicism, either from his past or in the present. So says the man with the eyes able to see the beautiful within much that others would lambast as too popular to be worthy of any praise or too far afield to be considered reminiscent of those beloved Transcendentals. Even in this, Birzer teaches us. His experience as a historian shines because he can wade into the gray of the authors’ and writers’ lives while commending them on a job well done. Creating works of beauty isn’t restricted to those pure, innocent, and nobly good few of us. He sees the good and recognizes what could have been as well as areas where growth could occur. But he does so from a position of trust, love, and dignity to those whose works he appreciates and wonders at.
Loves
Of course, his teaching also helps form the loves that we have. As a true student of Augustine, he forms his readers in their loves and offers wisdom as to how to best order them. While many of his chapters ponder works that may likely never be concerned great and likely be good at best, Birzer’s eyes remained fixed on how these works of art allow us to become more and more sons and daughters of the Father, how we can become more fully aware of the weight of glory each of us has to offer, and that we can likely find much beauty in what seems to be unlikely places. He may think that he is a cynic at times, but he admits his romantic streak as well. His discussion on the good that Romanticism brought to man, and even to the Catholic church, go a long way in showing how not all is lost; that, yes, even philosophies that are taken to extremes can bring us more into contact with our Lord.
His vulnerable final chapter on Faith gives us rich, deep, intimate insights into his life, thought, family, and experience. His love extends to his readers and he offers his own witness, as troubled and difficult as he may believe it to be. Yet here is a man in love with the Word and who makes every attempt to become more fully formed into the Image of God. He dignifies the works he analyzes and shows how an experience with them can foster a greater awareness of our fellow man and deepen the imaginative ways we can journey in this world.
His love of words, definitions, research, and life teach us to live, love, dignify the other, and journey into relationship with the things that are above. At the end of his first chapter on Cather’s O Pioneers!, he quotes her and adds, “‘A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.’ Amen, Willa, amen. The same is as true of a writer as it is of a magazine as it is of a critic. And it’s just as true today as it was in 1913.” But he shows us how to love by experiencing through our time, place, and senses the books, films, and works of art we enjoy and are moved by. While yes, our reflections, our philosophizing, and our drawing up into the cloud of the unknowing may be able to advance us into higher realms, the joy is that God has given us to experience these through our humanity, our senses, our flesh and blood. Works of art that provide resonance at every level of our being fill us and give us life and offer us an echo of what awaits us.
While these realms may be mythical, Birzer imitates Mary by showing us how to live well and love well, pointing us to Him, and giving us a taste of the beauty that awaits us.
I have to admit my great pleasure in reading this book because we share a great love for Willa Cather (as a somewhat Nebraska native and a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln), the Inklings, Kirk, King, Moore, Miller, Hitchcock, Nolan, Snyder, the Duffer Brothers. Plus I have found in Birzer a great guide for developing my historical consciousness and my understanding of Christian Humanism through his work at Hillsdale College. My affinity for and familiarity with his work has given me a broader understanding of his thought. Once again, he gives great witness to his ability as a wise teacher, generous counselor, and man of great virtue.
As a historian and man of letters, Birzer connects to the great Western tradition and upholds its virtues for us to learn thereby. In so doing, he demonstrates his prowess as a teacher and guides us as we form and order our loves. Birzer points us to higher realms that draw us more into who we are as sons and daughters of the Father and what we can do to grow in relationship with the world and those around us.
Tradition
Christian Humanism has a fine advocate in Birzer and I have appreciated his guidance in gaining a deeper understanding of what that means in Beyond Tenebrae, along with his Hillsdale Lectures which I happily listen to and relisten to. In this work, however, Birzer goes to great lengths to showcase what popular culture, and some cult classics, have offered to us by means of forming our moral imagination. He cites Burke at length at different times to refer to the moral imagination and , towards the end of the book, he gives a fuller explanation of the moral imagination when he states, “What is it but the ability to see the best of a person, the very creative act of God, living within one’s soul and within the body, a temple of the Holy Spirit, no matter how much corruption we have placed upon ourselves because of our poor choices?”
These dual aspects of our nature allow us to ponder how we see God, man, and our relationship to one another and our Creator. Each chapter attests to the True, Good, and Beautiful in places that they wouldn’t likely be found. Yet, Birzer has the eyes to see and the ears to hear. He gives praise where it is due and offers fair criticism when it is due. As a man who teaches about the Greek virtues, he does a fantastic job of embodying the just response to the works, texts, and films he gazes upon in wonder.
Birzer’s every effort goes into how these works of art converse with the great conversation that man has had for millenia. He shows how we can see greater and lesser versions of these in what we encounter in the literature and film of our day. The criteria he employs refer back to how well a work of art forms our moral imagination—Lewis would find a welcome ally in ensuring that our desires are higher, better, and great enough to rise to the occasions where justice demands our right response.
Teaching
Throughout the book, Birzer goes a long way in showing us how we too can grow to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Of course, as a professor, he has had years of experience with plumbing the depths of matters and guiding others to do so. In each chapter, he fills out the vision of his readers with deep and fine clarity, attending to the multitudinous layers of meaning present to us.
This happens especially in his chapter on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. He showcases connections more discernible at a quick glance but also those that require more attention, thought, and experience. He offers such guidance too in his chapter’s on Robert E. Howard, Tolkien, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Daredevil, and Stranger Things. Of course, all his chapters reflect his keen sight and good ears, but those chapters are tall flowers that showcase his thoughts and personhood amidst the veritable garden of beauty he offers. I highlight those chapters as well since they have also led me to ponder them at length and these are some of my favorites as well.
As all great teachers do, Birzer offers many types that point to the things above, those permanent, beautiful, lasting things worth our time and attention to behold, attend to, and wonder at. There are a few moments when he hints at his cynicism, either from his past or in the present. So says the man with the eyes able to see the beautiful within much that others would lambast as too popular to be worthy of any praise or too far afield to be considered reminiscent of those beloved Transcendentals. Even in this, Birzer teaches us. His experience as a historian shines because he can wade into the gray of the authors’ and writers’ lives while commending them on a job well done. Creating works of beauty isn’t restricted to those pure, innocent, and nobly good few of us. He sees the good and recognizes what could have been as well as areas where growth could occur. But he does so from a position of trust, love, and dignity to those whose works he appreciates and wonders at.
Loves
Of course, his teaching also helps form the loves that we have. As a true student of Augustine, he forms his readers in their loves and offers wisdom as to how to best order them. While many of his chapters ponder works that may likely never be concerned great and likely be good at best, Birzer’s eyes remained fixed on how these works of art allow us to become more and more sons and daughters of the Father, how we can become more fully aware of the weight of glory each of us has to offer, and that we can likely find much beauty in what seems to be unlikely places. He may think that he is a cynic at times, but he admits his romantic streak as well. His discussion on the good that Romanticism brought to man, and even to the Catholic church, go a long way in showing how not all is lost; that, yes, even philosophies that are taken to extremes can bring us more into contact with our Lord.
His vulnerable final chapter on Faith gives us rich, deep, intimate insights into his life, thought, family, and experience. His love extends to his readers and he offers his own witness, as troubled and difficult as he may believe it to be. Yet here is a man in love with the Word and who makes every attempt to become more fully formed into the Image of God. He dignifies the works he analyzes and shows how an experience with them can foster a greater awareness of our fellow man and deepen the imaginative ways we can journey in this world.
His love of words, definitions, research, and life teach us to live, love, dignify the other, and journey into relationship with the things that are above. At the end of his first chapter on Cather’s O Pioneers!, he quotes her and adds, “‘A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.’ Amen, Willa, amen. The same is as true of a writer as it is of a magazine as it is of a critic. And it’s just as true today as it was in 1913.” But he shows us how to love by experiencing through our time, place, and senses the books, films, and works of art we enjoy and are moved by. While yes, our reflections, our philosophizing, and our drawing up into the cloud of the unknowing may be able to advance us into higher realms, the joy is that God has given us to experience these through our humanity, our senses, our flesh and blood. Works of art that provide resonance at every level of our being fill us and give us life and offer us an echo of what awaits us.
While these realms may be mythical, Birzer imitates Mary by showing us how to live well and love well, pointing us to Him, and giving us a taste of the beauty that awaits us.
August 25, 2023
“It’s our duty to search out anywhere the excellent that exists within culture, and to promote it — because the excellent is always going to be in the minority. Excellence is the particular, whereas crud is universal. We find only the goodness where we look for it.”
Brad Birzer said those words amid an interview on “Great Film and the American Spirit”, and they sum up Mythic Realms fairly well. It is common to divide books into Literature and popular fiction, or film into Cinema and regular ol’ movies — but there is often truth buried in the mundane, so much so that classics do not become classics for until centuries have passed, and people realize the buried truth is still speaking. Many a classic author was wholly ignored in their lifetime, Jane Austen and William Shakespeare being prize example. In Mythic Realms, Brad Birzer takes literature, film, and even a few TV shows seriously — probing them for what they say about the human heart and our place in the Cosmos. They are a mix of old and new, ranging from Willa Cather’s O Pioneers to Star Trek and Stranger Things.
Dostoevsky remarked that Beauty will save the world, and books have been written on written on that remark alone, and on Beauty’s connection with Truth and the Good. In Mythic Realms we explore the practical application of that, of the power that stories have to awake us, to draw us out of the drowsy haze of the everyday and into the transcendent. He begins by sharing the authors who first made him aware of the power of literature, who formed him through their words and ideas, before settling into reflections on books and film. Mythic Realms is in large part surprising because he so often focuses on obscure and and unusual picks, like the pulp era in adventure, fantasy, and SF. (C.S. Lewis and Tolkien both feature, but one can’t write a book on the power of literature without looking at those two!) The excellence that Birzer finds here — sometimes glittering on the surface, sometimes needing a little smelting — varies on the book. Cather provides the deep, earnest love of the land that makes it possible for human civilization to endure despite hardship, whether that be prairie winds or Gulf coast humidity; pulp writers like Robert Howard celebrated strength, heroism, and man’s essential fire, which may be tamed and squelched by modernity but which will never be extinguished; in Star Trek, Birzer sees not only the power, but the importance of friendship. Jim Kirk was treble the man he would have been alone, because of Spock and McCoy, whose virtues complemented and balanced his own. It is not good for man to be alone — that is true whether a man is alone in a garden, a family struggling on the plains, or the captain of a ship to the stars. The film section does deep dives into he works of John Ford, Hitchcock, and — interestingly — The X-Files. I never watched the latter, but Birzer makes both it and (gasp) the Disney remake of Beauty and the Beast sound compelling enough to sit down and experience properly.
I thoroughly enjoyed Mythic Realms, from Birzer’s personal reflection on the power of literature, his appraisals of emerging genres like science fiction and progressive rock (at some point I need to listen to some to find out what he and Tom Woods find so compelling), to the case-by-case studies themselves. He’s introduced me to more than a few new names here, and prompted me to revisit films like Vertigo that I’ve watched previously and take them more seriously. My only caveat to the reader would be to keep in mind that this began as a collection of essays, and that mark lingers in some repeatedy quotes and background information. If you take books and film seriously, though, this is a volume to look for and savor. There’s nothing like discussing either with someone who loves and is inspired by them.
Brad Birzer said those words amid an interview on “Great Film and the American Spirit”, and they sum up Mythic Realms fairly well. It is common to divide books into Literature and popular fiction, or film into Cinema and regular ol’ movies — but there is often truth buried in the mundane, so much so that classics do not become classics for until centuries have passed, and people realize the buried truth is still speaking. Many a classic author was wholly ignored in their lifetime, Jane Austen and William Shakespeare being prize example. In Mythic Realms, Brad Birzer takes literature, film, and even a few TV shows seriously — probing them for what they say about the human heart and our place in the Cosmos. They are a mix of old and new, ranging from Willa Cather’s O Pioneers to Star Trek and Stranger Things.
Dostoevsky remarked that Beauty will save the world, and books have been written on written on that remark alone, and on Beauty’s connection with Truth and the Good. In Mythic Realms we explore the practical application of that, of the power that stories have to awake us, to draw us out of the drowsy haze of the everyday and into the transcendent. He begins by sharing the authors who first made him aware of the power of literature, who formed him through their words and ideas, before settling into reflections on books and film. Mythic Realms is in large part surprising because he so often focuses on obscure and and unusual picks, like the pulp era in adventure, fantasy, and SF. (C.S. Lewis and Tolkien both feature, but one can’t write a book on the power of literature without looking at those two!) The excellence that Birzer finds here — sometimes glittering on the surface, sometimes needing a little smelting — varies on the book. Cather provides the deep, earnest love of the land that makes it possible for human civilization to endure despite hardship, whether that be prairie winds or Gulf coast humidity; pulp writers like Robert Howard celebrated strength, heroism, and man’s essential fire, which may be tamed and squelched by modernity but which will never be extinguished; in Star Trek, Birzer sees not only the power, but the importance of friendship. Jim Kirk was treble the man he would have been alone, because of Spock and McCoy, whose virtues complemented and balanced his own. It is not good for man to be alone — that is true whether a man is alone in a garden, a family struggling on the plains, or the captain of a ship to the stars. The film section does deep dives into he works of John Ford, Hitchcock, and — interestingly — The X-Files. I never watched the latter, but Birzer makes both it and (gasp) the Disney remake of Beauty and the Beast sound compelling enough to sit down and experience properly.
I thoroughly enjoyed Mythic Realms, from Birzer’s personal reflection on the power of literature, his appraisals of emerging genres like science fiction and progressive rock (at some point I need to listen to some to find out what he and Tom Woods find so compelling), to the case-by-case studies themselves. He’s introduced me to more than a few new names here, and prompted me to revisit films like Vertigo that I’ve watched previously and take them more seriously. My only caveat to the reader would be to keep in mind that this began as a collection of essays, and that mark lingers in some repeatedy quotes and background information. If you take books and film seriously, though, this is a volume to look for and savor. There’s nothing like discussing either with someone who loves and is inspired by them.
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