Focused on the myths and mythologies of European cultural history, this volume seeks to address the present and past functions of foundation texts in the evolution of the European idea. One of the specific objectives of this volume is to reconsider, in the context of ongoing European expansion and integration, the functionalist approach of Benedict Anderson, according to whom "imagined communities . . . are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined."

The common denominator of each of the essays contained in this volume is the problem of the discontinuity of time in relation to tradition, cultural and individual memory, as well as in relation to historical and literary narratives. Time becomes "the locus of its own reflexivity: it is self-temporalized. It undergoes endless reiteration within itself, and needs a semantics which sets valid accents for specific moments." (Jean Bessiere)