Mythic imagination : collected short fiction / Joseph Campbell ; introduction by David Kudler.

Title :

Mythic imagination : collected short fiction

Author:

Campbell, Joseph, 1904-1987.

Format:

Books

Summary:

"Before he was the engaging professor who brought mythology into people's living rooms through his "The Power of Myth" conversations with Bill Moyers and the thinker whose ideas influenced Star Wars and whose "follow your bliss" entered the lexicon, Joseph Campbell was a young man who tried his hand at fiction. He published his first short story at 29, after years of Depression-era unemployment spent living off money earned in a jazz combo and reading the world's great literature in a syllabus of his own devising. Readers here find portraits of the hero's journey and rich symbolism, magical realism, down-to-Earth concern with the ravages of the Second World War, and even a U.S. president who wakes one morning to find his skin changed from white to black. Compelling in their own right, these seven stories are essential for longtime Campbell fans and the many who continue to discover him anew. "--

"Short stories and a novella by Joseph Campbell, written before he embarked on his career as a mythologist and professor. Includes portraits of the Hero's Journey, symbolism, magical realism, Campbell's concern with the ravages of World War II, and a U.S. president who wakes one morning to find his skin changed from white to black"--Provided by publisher

Language:

English

ISBN - ISSN:

9781608681532

160868153X

Physical Description:

xiv, 268 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Contents:

Pt. 1. Moonlight in Vermont -- Pt. 2. Where moth and rust: a story cycle -- Foreword -- Prelude 1. The forgotten man -- 2. The belly of the shark -- 3. The lord of love -- 4. Voracious -- Pt. 3. Last paradise -- Appendix -- Strictly platonic: The romance of a bookworm who lost his goat and found himself famous -- A Joseph Campbell bibliography -- About the author.

Subject:

Short stories.

Series:

Works.

First Title value, for Searching:

Mythic imagination : collected short fiction / Joseph Campbell ; introduction by David Kudler.

Holds: Copies:

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Summary

Before he was the engaging professor who brought mythology into people's living rooms through his conversations with Bill Moyers, before he became known as the thinker whose ideas influenced Star Wars , and before his now-beloved phrase "follow your bliss" entered the popular lexicon, Joseph Campbell was a young man who tried his hand at writing fiction. At the age of twenty-nine, after years of Depression-era unemployment, when he lived off money he had earned playing saxophone in a jazz combo and read the world's great literature in a syllabus of his own design, Campbell published his first short story. That tale, included in this collection, remained the famed mythologist's only published piece of fiction, until now.

In these stories, readers will find rich mythological symbolism, down-to-earth concerns with the ravages of the Second World War, and singular iterations of Campbell's famous Hero's Journey schema -- all interwoven into a literary style that anticipates the genre that would years later come to be known as "magical realism." Compelling in their own right, these seven stories are essential reading for longtime Campbell fans and the many who continue to discover him afresh.

Author Notes

Joseph Campbell was born in White Plains, New York on March 26, 1904. He received a B.A. in English literature in 1925 and an M.A. in Medieval literature in 1927 from Columbia University. He was awarded a Proudfit Traveling Fellowship to continue his studies at the University of Paris. After he had received and rejected an offer to teach at his high school alma mater, his Fellowship was renewed, and he traveled to Germany to resume his studies at the University of Munich. During the year he was housemaster of Canterbury School, he sold his first short story, Strictly Platonic, to Liberty magazine. In 1934, he accepted a position in the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he would retain until retiring in 1972.

During his lifetime, he wrote more than 40 books including The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Mythic Image, the four-volume The Masks of God, and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. During the 1940s and 1950s, he collaborated with Swami Nikhilananda on translations of the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He received several awards including National Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Contributions to Creative Literature and the 1985 National Arts Club Gold Medal of Honor in Literature. He died after a brief struggle with cancer on October 30, 1987.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In his introduction, Kudler, Managing Editor of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, supplies what to him is a self-evident explanation as to why only one of the seven surviving pieces of Campbell's short fiction was published before: "Given that his fiction hewed to the tropes of neither the realistic nor the speculative fiction, it's no surprise that Campbell couldn't find a publisher for his stories." Most readers won't be surprised either, but for different reasons. Though Campbell had a great mind for mythology, he fumbles here with fiction that is unredeemed by portentous and overwrought prologues. Four of the stories form a "Where Moth and Rust" cycle, which "was discovered in a manuscript that comes to us, by a curious turn, from the most distant future," and depicts a "mood, which so collides (to its own great discredit) with the wholesome hopefulness of the modern Christian." That ponderous preamble doesn't make the first story, "The Forgotten Man," in which the white U.S. president wakes up as an African-American and is forced from office, any more palatable. Given the insights Campbell was capable of in his influential non-fiction, it's not surprising to learn that these subpar efforts predated his decision to concentrate on comparative mythology. Readers hoping for a reflection of his unquestioned expertise and sophistication in other areas will be disappointed. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Choice Review

Campbell's unpublished fiction demonstrates why sometimes unpublished work of famous people sometimes should be available in archives only. Campbell's fame as a popularizer of world mythology is deserved, but myth specialists have long criticized his work as totalizing, acultural, and euhemerist. These seven stories demonstrate and exaggerate such flaws. Seeking to present mythic archetypes through fictional modern characters/settings, Campbell writes neither good mythology nor good fiction. Stylistically the stories are uneven at best, painfully stilted at worst. The characters are often gross caricatures, casting racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes as representing deep universal mythic "truths." In "The Forgotten Man," the US president awakes to find himself transformed into an African American. He resigns and sneaks away to "set forth among the peoples ... of the land." "I wish to know my people" he says, " ... to take the measure of their sorrow." He eventually descends to Shadowland, a subterranean brothel where he is confronted by a dancing "young woman, naked as a goddess with ... massive shuddering breasts and hips ... the image of the life of the world, and lo, she had turned to him!" And so on. In terms of fiction, the collection is psychologically unconvincing, and in terms of non-Western mythologies, condescending. Summing Up: Not recommended. M. F. McClure Virginia State University

David Kudler

About The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
Part I Moonlight in Vermont	p. 1
Part II Where Moth and Rust: A Story Cycle	p. 21
Foreword	p. 23
Prelude	p. 24
1 The Forgotten Man	p. 27
2 The Belly of the Shark	p. 59
3 The Lord of Love	p. 87
4 Voracious	p. 135
Part III Last Paradise	p. 197
Appendix. Strictly Platonic: The Romance of a Bookworm Who Lost His Goat and Found Himself Famous	p. 247
A Joseph Campbell Bibliography	p. 261
About the Author	p. 265
About The Joseph Campbell Foundation	p. 267

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Choice Review

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