The Monomyth: Why Campbell has never been entirely satisfying

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dauer

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Hi all.

I was thinking about this last night, the reason that, although I enjoy Joseph Campbell's work immensely and think it's a wonderful contribution, I haven't ever been able to see it as quite correct. It seems that what he really did in explaining how myth operates is, quite literally, create a primer on literary conflict. It deals with the rising action, the climax, the falling action, noting the various ways that each can be expressed, that sometimes they're expressed with this mechanism, sometimes this other one, sometimes both are used. Maybe Joseph Campbell never really meant it as anything more than this. It doesn't seem to me like much more than a bare permutable skeletal structure, before any meaning is really applied besides entering a conflict, dealing with it, and coming to a resolution. It's almost like to me, it's far more important an observation for literature than it is for religion, and really only applies to religion secondarily in that myth is literary by nature, whether oral stories or written. Maybe the real contribution Joseph Campbell made was in helping to more greatly develop humanity's sense of myth as literature and literature as myth.

What are your thoughts?

Dauer
 
Hey dauer :)

I think that it is the reconciliation stage in monomythic stories that offers hope through myth, and there is a great deal of value in this. However, I also find value in stories that leave the ending up to the individual--you know those kind that sometimes people say, "Well, that was disappointing, what a crock! I wasted all this time, and there's no ending?" :D Maybe the same reason people sometimes feel as if they just have to resolve a chord in jazz music, and yet it just hangs there. But I like that too.

What was the question? LOL.

InPeace,
InLove
 
dauer said:
Hi all.

I was thinking about this last night, the reason that, although I enjoy Joseph Campbell's work immensely and think it's a wonderful contribution, I haven't ever been able to see it as quite correct. It seems that what he really did in explaining how myth operates is, quite literally, create a primer on literary conflict. It deals with the rising action, the climax, the falling action, noting the various ways that each can be expressed, that sometimes they're expressed with this mechanism, sometimes this other one, sometimes both are used. Maybe Joseph Campbell never really meant it as anything more than this. It doesn't seem to me like much more than a bare permutable skeletal structure, before any meaning is really applied besides entering a conflict, dealing with it, and coming to a resolution. It's almost like to me, it's far more important an observation for literature than it is for religion, and really only applies to religion secondarily in that myth is literary by nature, whether oral stories or written. Maybe the real contribution Joseph Campbell made was in helping to more greatly develop humanity's sense of myth as literature and literature as myth.

What are your thoughts?

Dauer
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Perhaps to some Campbell's work is kind of like pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. It may be more like the clothes have no Emperor, but that's when we get to the place where we can discover the God beyond God.

Does that make any sense?

:p
 
I'm going to try and unpack that.

Perhaps to some Campbell's work is kind of like pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes.
Click to expand...

So like realizing that the myth is myth?

t may be more like the clothes have no Emperor, but that's when we get to the place where we can discover the God beyond God.
Click to expand...

Realizing that the myth isn't something that contains and limits God, but rather a projection of common human constructs?

Dauer
 
dauer said:
I'm going to try and unpack that.



So like realizing that the myth is myth?



Realizing that the myth isn't something that contains and limits God, but rather a projection of common human constructs?

Dauer
Click to expand...

Brilliant! Yes. A few obseravtions. First, many people get very offended when you suggest that their religion is myth because they equate that with a lie (fall out from the Enlightenment). But a myth is not a lie and it is not false. It points to the truth. Second, you might accept religion as myth and be tempted to conclude that there is nothing 'More' there, as it points to truth but that truth is limited and not Divine. But, I think, it is possible to come to the place where you describe, that the myth points to God but does not limit God.

We can look at myths with just our intellect and know of God, or we can enter into them and know God. The myth, the religion, is the vehicle, not the destination.
 
Hello All:

I know I've said this before here elsewhere, but the real value of mythos to me, as you pointed out Luna, is that it takes kernels of cultural truth that originated in ancient oral histories, and weaves them into story tapestries that convey a sense of reality to the readers/listeners. IMHO, this is why the Hebrews were led to compose their foundational stories into books that taught life lessons to those of us who live in Western cultures.

Not an accident as far as I'm concerned when it comes to rendering literate people able to apprehend the works of G-d...but then you could probably say the same things about other, more primitive myths. This was Campbell's value to me in a nutshell...revealing the processes through which meaningful stories build cultural foundations. He also was, I understand, a practicing Roman Catholic, and taught mythology to two generations at Vassar ( I believe).

Dauer...thanks for starting this thread on one of my heroes. Unfortunately most of them have passed on, but then that's a natural thing as one gets older.

flow....:)
 
I don't think that Campbell intended to propose a monomyth. I think one could get that impression if one were limited to his enormously popular television series with Bill Moyers, and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell has been sort of stuffed, posthumously, into a new agey role. His enthusiasm for the universal appeal of mythology has been repackaged into broad syncretic terms which I doubt he would approve.
 
Sunny C. said:
I don't think that Campbell intended to propose a monomyth. I think one could get that impression if one were limited to his enormously popular television series with Bill Moyers, and The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell has been sort of stuffed, posthumously, into a new agey role. His enthusiasm for the universal appeal of mythology has been repackaged into broad syncretic terms which I doubt he would approve.
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Campbellism?

Follow your bliss. :)
 
Campbellites?

"Follow your bliss brother."

"And you."

Followed by the secret bliss handshake or something.!
 
I got a "secret bliss decoder ring" by sending in three Wheaties boxtops, two Star Wars ticket stubs, and $1.50 for postage and handling costs.

It really does help me to follow my bliss.

flow....:p
 
I followed my bliss. It always left the house at odd hours and I was getting suspicious.
 
lunamoth said:
Brilliant! Yes. A few obseravtions. First, many people get very offended when you suggest that their religion is myth because they equate that with a lie (fall out from the Enlightenment). But a myth is not a lie and it is not false. It points to the truth. Second, you might accept religion as myth and be tempted to conclude that there is nothing 'More' there, as it points to truth but that truth is limited and not Divine. But, I think, it is possible to come to the place where you describe, that the myth points to God but does not limit God.

We can look at myths with just our intellect and know of God, or we can enter into them and know God. The myth, the religion, is the vehicle, not the destination.
Click to expand...
Awesome! Kudos! Yea team!!!
 
dauer said:
I followed my bliss. It always left the house at odd hours and I was getting suspicious.
Click to expand...

I found my bliss underneath the cushion on the couch. That, and a dollar and thirty two cents in change.

The emperor needed new clothes anyway.
 
We can look at myths with just our intellect and know of God, or we can enter into them and know God. The myth, the religion, is the vehicle, not the destination.
Click to expand...

Hi lunamoth.

I think that we are constantly engaged in an effort to create the personal mythology of our selves. It's a kind of heroic poetry of the self that's also a set of mnemonic devices to remind ourselves of important, intangible, archetypal connections with processes larger than ourselves and our short lifespans.
 
Sunny C. said:
Hi lunamoth.

I think that we are constantly engaged in an effort to create the personal mythology of our selves. It's a kind of heroic poetry of the self that's also a set of mnemonic devices to remind ourselves of important, intangible, archetypal connections with processes larger than ourselves and our short lifespans.
Click to expand...

Hi Sunny C.

Yes, I think you are right about that. I think it's more than connecting with just archetypal themes and a quest for immortality, though. I think it's also very much about connecting with one another, and with God, in the here and now.

Welcome to CR, BTW. :)
 
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