Frontmatter -- Introduction: National Myth – Mythic or National -- CHAPTER 1: The Investment of Literature with Mythic Significance -- CHAPTER 2: The Investment of History with Mythic Significance -- CHAPTER 3: The Search for the Legitimising Mythic Matter of the Moderns: From Homer’s Heroes to Gothic Knights and Back -- CHAPTER 4: The National Dimension of the New Mythic Materials: “Volkspoesie”, Ballad Revival and the Germanic Nations’ Mission in History -- CHAPTER 5: The Representative National Individual: The Emergence of Siegfried and King Arthur -- CHAPTER 6: The Results: Richard Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen and Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King as Modern National Myths -- CONCLUSION: Arthur, Siegfried and the Germanic – A Qualification of the Difference between the German and the Western Tradition -- Bibliography -- Index -- Backmatter