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And by and large he's correct-- his idea is extremely compelling. I enjoyed the book very much and find myself still chewing over Campbell's ideas-- thinking about contemporary movies and stories in relation to the monomyth.
I would highly recommend those first few chapters, though. I have to say, however, that my interest petered off by the end-- one could read the first few chapters, get the basic idea, and leave it at that.
In The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell seeks to use the concept of Jungian archetypes to explore the mythology of world culture. It reads kind of like Nietzsche-- poetically written philosophy.
They will provide you with some excellent and compelling food for thought. He proposes a structure for the universal hero myth-- the monomyth-- which he sees as holding true for the hero myth in every culture at every time period.
He puts forth this idea within the first chapter or two of the book, then becomes rather rambling and digressive, relating bizarre myths from various cultures and discussing them in relation to ideas that some will find rather New Age-y.
If after you are finished you wish for more depth, I suggest you try his four volume series "Masks of God."If you read some of the negative reviews you will get the impression Campbell tries to provide you with answers to life's great mysteries. Again, false. So what is "Hero." Campbell is a comparative mythologist, and the original title was "How to Read a Myth." While scholarly in nature, "Hero" is not a formal scholarly paper and should not be read as such. Campbell was awarded the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Contributions to Creative Literature for "Hero." As a scholar, he was particularly proud of this fact. On page one of the epilogue he says, "There is no final system for the interpretation of myths, and there will never be any such thing." You may also get the impression that Campbell was a mystic or part of the New Age movement. "Hero" is a broad survey of what is similar about the world's mythologies, remarkable in breadth for its length. If this interests you I suggest you read it.
This is also false. You will also get the impression that Campbell thinks he found the one and only way to interpret mythology.
It's difficulty may account for the "snooze factor" some reviewers attribute to it. Instead, he borrows vocabulary from a staggering variety of the world's mythologies to describe that mystery.
Instead, it falls in the realm of literature. This is false.
When asked what method of meditation he practices, he once responded, "I underline sentences." In other words, he is a scholar. While the book is not necessarily an easy read, it was written for the general public.
Rather than focus on what makes us different, as most comparative religion scholars do, he chose to focus on what makes us similar.
Based strongly on the outdated material from Sigmund Freud, this book uses a lot of his concepts and theories that have been completely discredited. This was often discussed in the classroom prior to class starting, so many other college students felt the same way. Purchased for a Mythology of the hero college course. Yet the book hasnt been updated or edited for that. If this is for personal knowledge, or enjoyment there are other books out there. The writing is pompous and over done. He spends chapters on concepts that could have been said in one or two sentences.
Thanks. Item as promised, rapidly shipped and well packaged. Literally could not have been a better experience.
this edition from bollingen series its beautiful, nice letters, and has wonderful illustrationsif you want to read this book this probably be the best possible way.but this book its not really about storytelling or mythology and its power,its more about religion, and oriental faith than how to shape a character like the great character of the past; its much more about shiva than ulises.
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