So I have been reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces to prep for my myth and folklore class, and I really like this quote, not so much because I agree with everything it says or implies–that is something I would need to think more about–but because the complexity of what it says appeals to me:
And likewise, mythology does not hold as its greatest hero the merely virtuous man. Virtue is but the pedagogical prelude to the culminating insight, which goes beyond all pairs of opposites. Virtue quells the self-centered ego and makes the transpersonal centeredness possible; but when that has been achieved, what then of the pain or pleasure, vice or virtue, either of our own ego or of any other?
I also found myself thinking when I read this passage, and I continue to think this as I make my way through the book, that Robert Bly and most of those who relied on Campbell in fashioning the ideology of the mythopoetic men’s movement back in the 1980s and 90s really narrowed and impoverished Campbell’s vision when they hung it on the political agenda of recovering and repairing (or whatever) traditional masculinity and manhood. They clearly did not take to heart what Campbell says is the “prime function of mythology and rite:”
to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those other constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back.
I mean this not as a defense of Campbell, or even, really, an endorsement of what he has to say; but as someone who spent an awful lot of time reading and critiquing Bly and others, I am struck by how wrongly they seem to have read him–at least as far as I can tell from my limited exposure to what Campbell is saying in this book.
Cross posted on It’s All Connected.
The Power of Myth is an even better book by Joseph Campbell. He was very influenced by Carl Jung’s work, and I think he clarifies a bit more as he gets older what he means with the mono-myth. The Hero with a Thousand Faces is actually a little boring. ;)
I don’t know what people have used his work for, but I think Campbell himself was a humanist who had a deep love of people. In reading his work, it doesn’t seem like he claims men are being feminized (or whatever Bly has said,) but more that we need myth to guide us through the milestones of life, through the deep questions of who we are, and to mark the transitions of our lives. I’m not a Campbell scholar by any means, so perhaps I missed that essay.
(Also, for your class – Joseph Campbell’s Mythos I and II are on Netflix, as well as The Hero’s Journey.)
“the culminating insight, which goes beyond all pairs of opposites”?
“transpersonal centeredness”?
This might make sense to a certain group of academics but it makes no sense to me.
Translated from the Pompous Professor-ese, roughly, “It’s not enough for heroes merely to be good guys. Having good qualities is important, but they are the means, not the end, to thinking about other people instead of Me The Hero; but then what does that mean for normal human feeling?”
[Edit to add: “Virtue” is a particularly stupid word to use in this context. It suggests a particular kind of Lawful Good character that is pretty much absent in most mythology; “desirable qualities” or “better than everyone else” are more accurate, I think.]
This kind of blathering bullshit, btw, is a pretty good capsule example of everything I despise about his writing. Chalk some of this up to academic snobbery if you like, but I’ll put it this way: when I studied mythology as an undergrad, of the authorities and scholars we were assigned to read and who were considered to have something to say, Campbell was not among them.
(Less academically, when it was pointed out to Campbell that his Monomyth Hero was a pretty male-centered approach to mythology, he explained that was because women unfortunately didn’t come up with myths or sagas because they were unfairly burdened with children and chores all the time and so didn’t have energy or time for more than making up fairy tales. I shit you not.)
I’d highly recommend looking at Wendy Doniger’s writings. Not only does she have some amazing things to say about myth, she can write in language that suggests she wants to communicate ideas rather than convince cute co-eds of her intellectual prowess.
Mythago: Male-centered? Clearly, and with all the caveats that follow, from almost the very first word of the book. Blathering bullshit? I am not so sure, and I mean that qualification honestly. I haven’t read enough of him to make a decision one way or the other. First, his style, which I’m actually kind of enjoying, pompous as it is, seems to me perfectly in keeping with the time period during which the book was written, so in and of itself, it doesn’t bother me much; and second, what intrigued me about the passage I quoted was Campbell’s assertion that virtue–and I won’t argue with your point that he might have chosen a better word–is a prerequisite for going beyond binary oppositions. For me, in this idea, and this is an intuitive connection for me right now, is also the kernel of the politically progressive (even radical in some ways) agenda for the study of the myth that William Doty talks about in Mythography. (Whether or not that connection will pan out, I don’t know.)
Another thing I am enjoying is the conviction with which Campbell makes his argument, not because I agree with him–I have a real problem, for example, with his assertion that psychoanalysis ought to be seen as the modern day (his day, obviously) equivalent of traditional initiation–but because it is a pleasure to wrestle with the ideas of someone who is willing to say outright what he thinks and to argue passionately for its usefulness without apology and without hedging. Doty’s book, for example, is also filled with conviction, but it is so hedged with academic and intellectual nuance, and all the paraphernalia of scholarship–and I do not mean that as a criticism–that the experience of reading the book is very different.
And thank you for pointing me in the direction of Doniger. I will certainly look her up. The study of myth is a new field for me. I was tagged to teach the course, which is, I should add, a literature course, not a course in the study of myth, because my work with the Shahnameh allows me to introduce into the way the course is defined at my school the myths and folktales of pre-Islamic Iran, which make for some pretty interesting comparisons with classical Greek mythology, perhaps especially in what it means to be a hero. (No less male-centered, but there is a very different take on it in the Iranian text.)
I’d love to be pointed towards some of the pre-Islamic texts you mention.
Sure, Campbell’s style is not unusual for his time, and sure, he’s opinionated, but I don’t count those as, well, virtues on their own. And yes, his theory of the monomyth is both heavily Jungian (hence the emphasis on psychoanalysis) and male-centered.
“the culminating insight, which goes beyond all pairs of opposites”?
The insight the hero is searching for (whether s/he knows it or not), which goes beyond all dichotomies – or, which shows the hero a glimpse of insight outside of human judgement.
“transpersonal centeredness”?
Centered on that place in human consciousness between the rational and the mystical.
Courtesy, the daughter of a Jungian Psychoanalyst…
We were assigned Propp, instead of Campbell, because just about everything Campbell has to say about the practical way stories are structured is in Morphology of a Folktale, and we could better spend our time on other types of analysis. If this is a lit course, I would recommend Propp.
The Monomyth really doesn’t hold water for me, or rather, it should have a different name. (It’s one that shows up a lot, but hardly the ONE MYTH.)
I think “virtue” there is a case of classical influence, when the word was much less “lawful good” and much more “desirable characteristics”. Honestly, I still don’t think of virtue as anything more than “the desirable characteristics”.
I would love to see some of these pre-Islamic texts, as well, actually. I willd efinitely have to pick up some Doniger.
LC: Can you tell me a little bit about Propp? Maybe give me a title or two? I’m not actually assigning books about myth for this class, but I could definitely use the information. Thanks.
Also, regarding the pre-Islamic Iranian tales, I should be clear that I am not talking about pre-Islamic texts–meaning texts written before the Muslim conquest of Iran–but rather about the pre-Islamic myth and folklore or Iran, for which the most easily accessible versions are in the various translations of the Shahnameh, an epic poem, written in the 10th century–300 years or so after the Muslim conquest. There are a couple out there:
1. My verse translation of the beginning of the Shahnameh, The Teller of Tales, is available from the publisher, Junction Press.
2. Dick Davis has two books out: Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, which is a prose translation of almost the entire epic, and Rostam: Tales of Love and War, which is an excerpt of the first book, consisting of the stories about Rostam, the Hercules-like hero that is the most well-known character in the epic. (A guy named Jerome Clinton has also done verse translations of two of Rostam’s stories, but I don’t have the time to hunt up the links right now.)
3. Davis has also done a verse translation of the story of Seyavash from the Shahnameh.
4. There is also the book Persian Myths, which is an overview of the pre-Islamic myths of Iran, from which some of the material in the Shahnameh is taken.
One title: Morphology of the Folktale. I don’t even know if he wrote anything else. ( I assume he did and it just wasn’t translated into English.) Basicall, it is about the recurring story elements of folktale. It is a formalist approach, no search for meaning. Think of Hero with a Thousand Faces without the psychoanalysis. I found it easy to read, but that may depend on the translation.
Simple Truth, Campbell indeed was a humanist who had a deep love of people. It’s just debatable whom he considered human, and which people he loved.
And Richard, yes, as mythago points out, he picked and chose among the mythic forms that he wanted to valorize, ignoring those that didn’t suit his preexisting biases. This particularly excluded myths centered on women and those deriving from non-European cultures, because he simply didn’t believe their stories were worth noting. (He rationalized this exclusion in various ways, but that’s what it really came down to.) Eurocentrism, blatant racism, and patronizing sexism are not unexpected for a man of that time, but these things are certainly problems for someone attempting to claim a single central mythic thread underlying all stories. You need to be at least willing to hear all stories before you can successfully claim that.