> If I might digress into something other than poo-throwing and
> bile-spewing for a bit,
;-)
> does anybody know whether Joseph Campbell's
> description of the hero's journey is held to have any academic merit?
Weeeeellll, (not having read the subsequent mails yet) , yes and no.
Yes, insofar that it's linked to post-Jungian academia, which seems
to think that the archetypal stories that Campbell describes represent
various genetic, pre-cognitive, and / or traditional / cultural /
sociological
factors explaining normal human behaviour, but ...
No, insofar that academic literary motif analysis is drastically opposed to the Campbellian model, which is to say that it looks at the history and evolution of large numbers of specific motifs and <shudder> structures over the course of the centuries or millennia, instead of (like Campbell) assuming some kind of transcendental overreaching source of truth that the Hero's Journey might represent.
I'll go out on a limb, because I share many of Campbell's catholic ideas, and say that Campbell's idea that some form of divine action informs myth at its "Jungian" or "structural" base is generally, although not formally, true ; but that Campbell's catholicism ought to have informed him that the presence of Christ in various pagan or heterodox myths shouldn't lead one to analyse these myths and stories primarily as Christian metaphors, as he did.
Particularly, Campbell's analysis of Oriental Mythology seems to be based on a few false premises.
Julian Lord
--
__________________________________
"Hmmm, I've heard of other powers.
Can you tell me about ...
... Real Life ?"
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