myth-kittyn.
/ˈmɪθˌkɪti/, U.S. /ˈmɪθˌkɪdi/ Literary Criticism.
A body of myths known to and shared by the members of a particular society or community; a mythos. Frequently with allusion to Philip Larkin's use (see quot. 1955).
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > mythology > [noun]
fablea1400
mythology1718
mythos1844
myth-kitty1955
1955 P. Larkin in D. J. Enright Poets of 1950's 78 As a guiding principle I believe that every poem must be its own sole freshly-created universe, and therefore have no belief in ‘tradition’ or a common myth-kitty.
1959 Spectator 11 Sept. 339/7 A year or two ago, Mr Amis told the poets to shut up about Orpheus, and Mr Larkin renounced his share of the ‘myth-kitty’.
1983 Rev. Eng. Stud. 34 244 It seems to constitute a self-contained symbolic world, indebted to the much-maligned ‘myth-kitty’, with unadventurous poetic forms and a limited vocabulary and emotional range.
2000 Independent (Electronic ed.) 2 Oct. Where gods and monsters, kings and heroes, once crowded the fictional myth-kitty, now movies, TV and computer-games fill the vacancy for a shared body of allusion.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1955