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"Follow your bliss."
~Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Let's start by learning a little about Joseph Campbell. The above quote, "Follow your bliss," is a phrase he said very often and can be considered his philosophy or personal motto.
Joseph Campbell was an American writer and lecturer, who was most well-known for his work in comparative mythology and religion. Campbell was born and raised in White Plains, New York. In college, he started out studying biology and mathematics, but eventually switched to literature. He received a B.A. in English literature and a M.A. in Medieval literature from Columbia University.
In 1927, Campbell received a fellowship from Columbia University to study in Europe. He quickly learned to speak French and German. In Europe, Campbell became influenced by the work of James Joyce and Thomas Mann. He was introduced to modern art and especially liked the work of Pablo Picasso. Campbell also discovered the writing of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud.
Campbell was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York from 1934 to 1972. He married one of his former students, Jean Erdman, in 1938.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell wrote many books throughout his life. The one I am using for this class is The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It was first published in 1949. The edition that I have is the third edition, which was published in 2008. The Hero with a Thousand Faces has been translated into over twenty languages - Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Dutch, Greek, Danish, Persian, Polish, Czech, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian, and Russian.
In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell writes that the journey of a hero in many myths around the world follow a similar circular pattern. He calls this journey a Monomyth, a term that Campbell borrowed from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. There are three main stages in the journey: Departure, Initiation, and Return. You will learn more about these in the lessons to come. This class will focus on the Monomyth, which is the first half of The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
The second half explores the more spiritual and symbolic patterns in the journey of the hero. The Hero with a Thousand Faces has been used by many songwriters, authors, and filmmakers. George Lucas clearly used The Hero with a Thousand Faces in Star Wars. Lucas has said in interviews how Joseph Campbell influenced his storytelling and filmmaking. Another notable user of The Hero with a Thousand Faces is Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer. He emphasized using The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a guide in a memo for Disney. Obvious influences from the book can be seen in the movies Aladdin, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast.
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