Apocalittici o integrati? La semiotica e il mito contemporaneo

The paper compares Umberto Eco's book Apocalypse postponed, with Roland Barthes' Mythologies, and with Greimas’ Miti e figure, with reference to the notion of myth. Two elements of originality are identified in Eco's reflection: the tendency of mass culture to re-propose collective myths, in contrast with the individualism of bourgeois culture; the conflict between the ahistorical dimension of myth and the need for markets to sell serial narratives. The article also discusses the myth of the apocalyptic and its reincarnations to ask how current it may be and who the apocalyptic prophets of today are