Mythical time in comtemporary Vietnamese fiction

Abstract

In contemporary Vietnamese fictional works, mythical time is a special kind of time. It is boldly spiritual, non-linear and multi-aspect. It is also associated with the ritual and collective activities of the community. If a literary work using mythical elements expresses the mythical time, it will make humans become closer to the living time of sanctity. Then, mythical time contributes to the discovery of the depth of the inner world of characters facing the changes of life. And mythical time brings people back to the cosmic experience, to human life, to death, to life, to mortal experiences, to aspirations for eternity. This article investigates mythical time incontemporary Vietnamese fictional vrorks through two kinds of time: temporal time and illusory time.