with LEWIS HYDE
Lewis Hyde is a mythologist and MacArthur genius who is an expert on the trickster archetype. In America, we call it a con-man, short for “confidence man.” In this episode, Hyde talks about why tricksters gain power, why it’s a symptom of something else in society, and what it signals for the future. Near the end, I asked about the former Trickster in Chief. His answer was a thunder bolt.
P.S. This episode was a favorite among the Jung in the World podcast crew!
More Information
Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. His 1983 book, The Gift, illuminates and defends the non-commercial portion of artistic practice. Trickster Makes This World (1998) uses a group of ancient myths to argue for the disruptive intelligence that all cultures need if they are to remain lively and open to change. Common as Air (2010) is a spirited defense of our “cultural commons,” that vast store of ideas, inventions, and works of art that we have inherited from the past and continue to enrich in the present.
Hyde’s most recent book, A Primer for Forgetting, explores the many situations in which forgetfulness is more useful than memory—in myth, personal psychology, politics, art & spiritual life.
A MacArthur Fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde taught writing and American literature for many years at Kenyon College. Now retired, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, the writer Patricia Vigderman. Hyde is a trustee of MacDowell and a founding director of the Creative Capital Foundation.
Learn more at lewishyde.com
