12 Joseph Campbell: Hero with a Thousand Faces

Reading: Campbell, Joseph “Myth and Dream” from Hero with a Thousand Faces, pdf in Canvas.

Vocabulary (Merriam Webster Dictionary):

• hero: a) mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability; b) : an illustrious warrior; c) : a person admired for achievements and noble qualities; d) : one who shows great courage. Etymology: Ancient Greek, demigod
• monomyth: (note: not in Merriam Webster). A word coined by Irish author James Joyce and used to describe the universal hero pattern that occurs in world mythology (Leeming, 203)
• apotheosis: elevation to divine status: deification; the apotheosis of Roman emperors

Background

Joseph Campbell was an American scholar of comparative religion and comparative mythology. His first book, Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), won numerous awards and established him as a major scholar in his field. He was also a popular public speaker and lecturer. When Campbell won the national Arts Club Gold Medal of Honor in Literature in 1985, presenter James Hillman said, “No one in our century—not Freud, not Thomas Mann, not Levi-Strauss—has so brought the mythical sense of the world and its eternal figures back into our everyday consciousness.”

In Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell explores the ubiquitous monomyth, this universal pattern of a hero’s journey. The journey can be seen as a metaphor for every person’s quest for self-knowledge (Leeming, 204). Not every myth has every element of the hero’s journey, but some elements are present in the hero’s journey myths of every world culture. These elements include divine origin (the word “hero” meant “demigod” in ancient Greece), a call to adventure, crossing the threshold to another world, trials and confrontations with monsters, wise guides and other companions, a confrontation with the hero’s nemesis (and a descent to the underworld), and the return to the hero’s culture with new knowledge and gifts (Leeming, 206-207).  In the early 1970s, Campbell’s work famously inspired a young film maker named George Lucas, who set his hero’s journey Star Wars “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

One of Campbell’s most famous quotes is “Follow your bliss” (Power of Myth, p. 120).  After Campbell recorded interviews with Bill Moyers for PBS shortly before his death in 1987, this phrase became a popular slogan. To learn more about Joseph Campbell, his work, and his influence on mythology, visit the Joseph Campbell Foundation website.

Summary of “Myth and Dream”

In the first chapter of Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell lays out his premise of a monomyth that exists in every world culture. He uses the story of Theseus and the Minotaur to illustrate the hero’s journey. Campbell also connects his work to Jung’s archetypes by exploring how our dreams often feature elements of the monomyth. He defines a hero as “the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normal human forms…. The hero has died as a modern man; but as eternal man—perfected, unspecific, universal man—he is reborn” (19-20). In other words, we are the heroes, and the hero’s journey, in story and rites of passage, is one we must all take to become self-aware.