The “Myth of the Magus” and its “Transmutations”

The paper’s theoretical framework is based on E. M. Butler’s research into The Myth of the Magus, which proposes a narrative template for stories about male magicians (akin to Campbell’s “monomyth”) and the author’s own theory of modes of magicity in literature, first developed in her PhD. Butler argues that, within the Western tradition, there is a distinct type of narrative concerning a male magus with ten stock features. This “myth of the magus” manifests in a story of either a fictional character or a historical figure whose life and deeds are thus “mythologised” and reworked. Proposing a taxonomy of magic in literature, the theory of modes of magicity identifies the Learned Magic mode, the Faerie mode and the Witchcraft mode and outlines the resulting types of story with corresponding genre conventions. The myth of the magus is most often realised in the Learned Magic mode dominated by male magical agency. Remarkably, in the 19th century, the myth of the magus transformed into “the myth of the (mad) scientist,” with the narrative of Victor Frankenstein serving as the medium of ‘transmutation’. Drawing on a range of texts, the paper seeks to outline the dynamics and possible reasons for such “transmutations”.