When Marcel Detienne in l'Invention de la mythology (1981) convincinglyargued that the concept of myth is no more than a modern semantic construction,to which no real genre corresponds, he dealt the fatal blow to thealready languishing structuralistic myth research. Since then, the mythologicalfield of study has not recovered; it seems nor to have been able to adapt tothe paradigmatic shift to poststructuralism. Yet, the work of the philosopherand philologist Hans Blumenberg might provide us with such a poststructuralistalternative. In Work on myth (1979) he develops a new and non-essentialistapproach to myth. By means of the limit concept "absolutism of reality"he presents myth not as a product, buc as a process. This article aims tointroduce Blumenbergs thinking, to situate him in the recent impasse of mythresearch and to demonstrate how his alternative methodology allows a wayout of it.
