A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living (Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)

by Joseph Campbell

  His travels next carried him north to San Francisco, then back south to Pacific Grove, where he spent the better part of a year in the company of Carol and John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts. During this time, he wrestled with his writing, discovered the poems of Robinson Jeffers, first read Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, and wrote to some seventy colleges and universities in an unsuccessful attempt to secure employment. Finally, he was offered a teaching position at the Canterbury School. He returned to the East Coast, where he endured an unhappy year as a Canterbury housemaster, the one bright moment being when he sold his first short story ("Strictly Platonic") to Liberty magazine. Then, in 1933, he moved to a cottage without running water on Maverick Road in Woodstock NY, where he spent a year reading and writing. In 1934, he was offered and accepted a position in the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he would retain for thirty-eight years.

  In 1938 he married one of his students, Jean Erdman, who would become a major presence in the emerging field of modern dance, first, as a star dancer in Martha Graham's fledgling troupe, and later, as dancer/choreographer of her own company.

  Even as he continued his teaching career, Joe's life continued to unfold serendipitously. In 1940, he was introduced to Swami Nikhilananda, who enlisted his help in producing a new translation of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (published, 1942). Subsequently, Nikhilananda introduced Joe to the Indologist Heinrich Zimmer, who introduced him to a member of the editorial board at the Bollingen Foundation. Bollingen, which had been founded by Paul and Mary Mellon to "develop scholarship and research in the liberal arts and sciences and other fields of cultural endeavor generally," was embarking upon an ambitious publishing project, the Bollingen Series. Joe was invited to contribute an "Introduction and Commentary" to the first Bollingen publication, Where the Two Came to their Father: A Navaho War Ceremonial, text and paintings recorded by Maud Oakes, given by Jeff King (Bollingen Series, I: 1943).

  When Zimmer died unexpectedly in 1943 at the age of fifty-two, his widow, Christiana, and Mary Mellon asked Joe to oversee the publication of his unfinished works. Joe would eventually edit and complete four volumes from Zimmer's posthumous papers: Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization (Bollingen Series VI: 1946), The King and the Corpse (Bollingen Series XI: 1948), Philosophies of India (Bollingen Series XXVI: 1951), and a two-volume opus, The Art of Indian Asia (Bollingen Series XXXIX: 1955).

  Joe, meanwhile, followed his initial Bollingen contribution with a "Folkloristic Commentary" to Grimm's Fairy Tales (1944); he also co-authored (with Henry Morton Robinson) A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake (1944), the first major study of James Joyce's notoriously complex novel.

  His first, full-length, solo authorial endeavor, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series XVII: 1949), was published to acclaim and brought him the first of numerous awards and honors—the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Contributions to Creative Literature. In this study of the myth of the hero, Campbell posits the existence of a Monomyth (a word he borrowed from James Joyce), a universal pattern that is the essence of, and common to, heroic tales in every culture. While outlining the basic stages of this mythic cycle, he also explores common variations in the hero's journey, which, he argues, is an operative metaphor, not only for an individual, but for a culture as well. The Hero would prove to have a major influence on generations of creative artists—from the Abstract Expressionists in the 1950s to contemporary film-makers today—and would, in time, come to be acclaimed as a classic.

  Joe would eventually author dozens of articles and numerous other books, including The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology (Vol. 1: 1959), Oriental Mythology (Vol. 2: 1962), Occidental Mythology (Vol. 3: 1964), and Creative Mythology (Vol. 4: 1968); The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension (1969); Myths to Live By (1972); The Mythic Image (1974); The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion (1986); and five books in his four-volume, multi-part, unfinished Historical Atlas of World Mythology (1983-87).

  He was also a prolific editor. Over the years, he edited The Portable Arabian Nights (1952) and was general editor of the series Man and Myth (1953-1954), which included major works by Maya Deren ( Divine Horsemen: the Living Gods of Haiti, 1953), Carl Kerenyi ( The Gods of the Greeks, 1954), and Alan Watts ( Myth and Ritual in Christianity, 1954). He also edited The Portable Jung (1972), as well as six volumes of Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks (Bollingen Series XXX): Spirit and Nature (1954), The Mysteries (1955), Man and Time (1957), Spiritual Disciplines (1960), Man and Transformation (1964), and The Mystic Vision (1969).

  But his many publications notwithstanding, it was arguably as a public speaker that Joe had his greatest popular impact. From the time of his first public lecture in 1940—a talk at the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center entitled "Sri Ramakrishna's Message to the West"—it was apparent that he was an erudite but accessible lecturer, a gifted storyteller, and a witty raconteur. In the ensuing years, he was asked more and more often to speak at different venues on various topics. In 1956, he was invited to speak at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute; working without notes, he delivered two straight days of lectures. His talks were so well-received, he was invited back annually for the next seventeen years. In the mid-1950s, he also undertook a series of public lectures at the Cooper Union in New York City; these talks drew an ever-larger, increasingly diverse audience, and soon became a regular event.

  Joe first lectured at Esalen Institute in 1965. Each year thereafter, he returned to Big Sur to share his latest thoughts, insights, and stories. And as the years passed, he came to look forward more and more to his annual sojourns to the place he called "paradise on the Pacific Coast." Although he retired from teaching at Sarah Lawrence in 1972 to devote himself to his writing, he continued to undertake two month-long lecture tours each year.

  In 1985, Joe was awarded the National Arts Club Gold Medal of Honor in Literature. At the award ceremony, James Hillman remarked, "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."

  Joseph Campbell died unexpectedly in 1987 after a brief struggle with cancer. In 1988, millions were introduced to his ideas by the broadcast on PBS of Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, six hours of an electrifying conversation that the two men had videotaped over the course of several years. When he died, Newsweek magazine noted that "Campbell has become one of the rarest of intellectuals in American life: a serious thinker who has been embraced by the popular culture."

  In his later years, Joe was fond of recalling on how Schopenhauer, in his essay On the Apparent Intention in the Fate of the Individual, wrote of the curious feeling one can have, of there being an author somewhere writing the novel of our lives, in such a way that through events that seem to us to be chance happenings there is actually a plot unfolding of which we have no knowledge.

  Looking back over Joe's life, one cannot help but feel that it proves the truth Schopenhauer's observation.

  For more information on the works of Joseph Campbell, click here.

  About Joseph Campbell Foundation

  Joseph Campbell Foundation (JCF) is a not-for-profit corporation that continues the work of Joseph Campbell, exploring the fields of mythology and comparative religion. The Foundation is guided by three principal goals:

  First, the Foundation preserves, protects, and perpetuates Campbell’s pioneering work. This includes cataloging and archiving his works, developing new publications based on his works, directing the sale and distribution of his published works, protecting copyrights to his works, and increasing awareness of his works by making them available in digital formats on JCF’s Web site (www.jcf.org).

  Second, the Foundation promotes the study of mythology and comparative religion. This involves implementing and/or supporting diverse mythological education programs, suppor
ting and/or sponsoring events designed to increase public awareness, donating Campbell’s archived works (principally to Joseph Campbell and Marija Gimbutas Archive and Library), and utilizing JCF’s Web site as a forum for relevant cross-cultural dialogue.

  Third, the Foundation helps individuals enrich their lives by participating in a series of programs, including our global, Internet-based Associates program, our local international network of Mythological Roundtables, and our periodic Joseph Campbell–related events and activities.

  For more information on Joseph Campbell

  and Joseph Campbell Foundation, contact:

  Joseph Campbell Foundation

  www.jcf.org

  Post Office Box 36

  San Anselmo, CA 94979-0036

  United States of America

  [Back to Nt. 1] M. Capek, The Philosophical Impact of Centemporary Physics (Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1961), p. 319; as cited in Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (Boulder, CO: 1975), p. 211.

  [Back to Nt. 2] Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology, Vol. 4 of The Masks of God (New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1968), p. 508.

  [Back to Nt. 3] This paragraph is paraphrased and quoted from C. G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX, Vol. 8, pars. 789–792; originally published as “Die seelischen Probleme der menschlichen Altersufen,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 14 and 16, 1930; Revised, largely rewritten, and republished as “Die Lebenswende,” Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart (Psychologische Abhandlunger, III; Zurich, 1931), which version was translated by W. S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes as “The Stages of Life,” Modern Man in Search of a Soul (London and New York, 1933); the present translation by R. F. C. Hull is based on this; cited in The Portable Jung, edited by Joseph Campbell (New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1970), pp. 19–20.

  [Back to Nt. 4] Matthew 18:3.

  [Back to Nt. 5] “Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians,” in Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, Vol. XXXI (1938,) p. 110.

  [Back to Nt. 6] Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road,” in Leaves of Grass.

  [Back to Nt. 7] Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By (New York: Bantam Books, 1974; ebook edition, Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2011), "II - The Emergence of Mankind," pp. 23–24.

  [Back to Nt. 8] Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.1–5.; quoted in Joseph Campbell, Primitive Mythology, Vol. 1 of The Masks of God (New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1959), p. 105.

  [Back to Nt. 9] Primitive Mythology, p. 104; abridging Symposium 189D ff, from The Dialogues of Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett (New York: Random House, 1937).

  [Back to Nt. 10] C. G. Jung,Axion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9, Part II, par. 26; translated by R. F. C. Hull from the first part of Axion: Untersuchungen zur Symbolgeschichte, Psychologische Abhandlungen, VIII (Zurich: Rascher Verlag, 1951); cited in The Portable Jung, p. 151.

  [Back to Nt. 11] Ibid., pars. 28–30, abr.; cited in The Portable Jung, pp. 152–153, abr.

  [Back to Nt. 12] Erik Routley, The Man for Others (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 99; cited in Creative Mythology, p. 177.

  [Back to Nt. 13] Gurraut de Borneilh, Tam cum los oills el cor.…, in John Rutherford, The Troubadors (London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1861), pp. 34–35; cited in Creative Mythology, pp. 177–178.

  [Back to Nt. 14] Creative Mythology, p. 567; Campbell here paraphrases James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (London: Jonathen Cape, Ltd., 1916), p. 196.

  [Back to Nt. 15] Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Bollingen XVII, 3rd edition, revised (Novato, California: New World Library, 2008), p. 196.

  [Back to Nt. 16] Arthur Schopenhauer, “Die beiden Grundproblemen der Ethik,” II. “Über das Fundament der Moral” (1840), Sämtliche Werke, 12 Vols. (Stuttgart: Verlag der Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1895–1898) Vol. 7, p. 253; cited in Joseph Campbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, 2nd edition, revised (Novato, California: New World Library 2002), p. 93.

  [Back to Nt. 17] Ibid.

  [Back to Nt. 18] Myths to Live By, p. 155.

  [Back to Nt. 19] Campbell comments: “See Melanie Klein, The Psychoanalysis of Children, The International Psycho-Analytical Library, No. 27 (1937).”

  [Back to Nt. 20] Géza Róheim, War, Crime, and the Covenant (Journal of Clinical Psychopathology, Monograph Series, No. 1, Monticello, N.Y., 1945), pp. 137–138.

  [Back to Nt. 21] The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pp. 173–174.

  [Back to Nt. 22] Myths to Live By, pp. 220–221.

  [Back to Nt. 23] Ibid., p. 47.

  [Back to Nt. 24] Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, 3.118.14–17 and 28; translated (in part) from Helen M. Mustard and Charles E. Passage (New York: Vintage Books, 1961), p. 127.

  [Back to Nt. 25] Ibid., 3.119.29–30.

  [Back to Nt. 26] Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology, Vol. 3 of The Masks of God (New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1964), pp. 508–509.

  [Back to Nt. 27] Creative Mythology, pp. 677–678.

  [Back to Nt. 28] James Joyce, p. 247; cited in Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimensions of Fairy Tales, Legends, and Symbols (New York: The Viking Press, Inc., 1969), p. 209.

  [Back to Nt. 29] Myths to Live By, p. 68.

  [Back to Nt. 30] Albert Pauphilet, editor, La Queste del Saint Graal (Paris: Champion, 1949), p.26; as cited in Creative Mythology, op. cit.

  [Back to Nt. 31] C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, translated by R. F. C. Hull, in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol.. 12, p. 222; cited in Myths to Live By, p. 68.

  [Back to Nt. 32] Joseph Campbell, “Mythological Themes in Creative Literature and Art,” in The Mythic Dimension: Selected Essays 1959–1987, edited by Antony Van Couvering (Novato, California: New World Library, 2008), p. 148.

  [Back to Nt. 33] James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Penguin ed., p. 203; cited in The Mythic Dimension, p. 168.

  [Back to Nt. 34] Ibid., p. 174.

  [Back to Nt. 35] The Flight of the Wild Gander, p. 226.

  [Back to Nt. 36] The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 53.

  [Back to Nt. 37] Ibid., p. 17.

  [Back to Nt. 38] Ibid., p. 217.

  [Back to Nt. 39] Ibid., p. 229.

  [Back to Nt. 40] Myths to Live By, p. 238.

  [Back to Nt. 41] C. G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936), p. 129; cited in Primitive Mythology, p. 124.

  [Back to Nt. 42] Ibid., p. 126; cited in Primitive Mythology, p. 124.

  [Back to Nt. 43] Primitive Mythology, p123.

  [Back to Nt. 44] The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pp. 365–366.

  [Back to Nt. 45] The Flight of the Wild Gander, p. 110.

  [Back to Nt. 46] The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 121.

  [Back to Nt. 47] Ibid., p. 356.

  [Back to Nt. 48] Ibid., p. 308.

  [Back to Nt. 49] Myths to Live By, p. 131, abridged.

  [Back to Nt. 50] Bhagavad Gītā, 2.27, 30, 23; abridged, reordered, and cited in Myths to Live By, p.202.

  [Back to Nt. 51] Lao-tse, Tao-te Ching, 16 (translation by Dwight Goddard, Laotzu’s Tao and Wu Wei; New York, 1919, p. 18; as cited in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 189.

  [Back to Nt. 52] Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV, 252–255; as cited in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 243.

  [Back to Nt. 53] The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 367.

  [Back to Nt. 54] Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (Oxford University Press, 1934), Vol. VI, pp. 169–175, summarized.

  [Back to Nt. 55] The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 16.

  [Back to Nt. 56] Patanjali, Yoga Sūtras 1.1–2, from Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, edited by Joseph Campbell, Bollingen Series XXVI (New York: Pantheon Books, 1951), p. 284.

  [Back to Nt. 57] Joseph Cambell, The Mythic Image, Bollingen Series C (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 313.

/>   [Back to Nt. 58] Ibid., p. 331.

  [Back to Nt. 59] Ibid., p. 341.

  [Back to Nt. 60] Ibid., p. 345.

  [Back to Nt. 61] Ibid., p. 350.

  [Back to Nt. 62] Ibid., p. 356.

  [Back to Nt. 63] Ibid.

  [Back to Nt. 64] Meister Eckhart, edited by Franz Pfeiffer, translated by C. de B. Evans (London: John M. Watkins, 1924–1931), No. XCVI (“Riddance”), I, 239.