This book offers critical-interpretative essays on various aspects of the work of Joseph Campbell. It focuses on Campbell, the scope of his career, or his general point of view. The book discusses in depth and details specific questions, subjects, or themes in Campbell’s work.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Man

1. The Soul’s High Adventure: Campbell’s Comparative Mythology

2. Freud, Jung, and Campbell

3. Myth Versus Religion for Campbell

4. Interpreting Campbell: Hermeneutics and Comparative Mythology

5. The American Roots of Campbell’s Mythic Vision

Part II: The Work

6. The Twin Heroes: Campbell’s Solar/Lunar Vision of the Masculine

7. Campbell on Myth, Romantic Love, and Marriage

8. Campbell and Schopenhauer: Synchronicity and the Tragic Vision

9. Campbell, the Feminine Principle, and the Romantic Male Hero

10. The Chariot of the Hero: Myth and Metaphor in Campbell

11. The Rhetoric of Mythology and Science in Campbell’s Works

Part III: The Farther Reaches

12. Campbell and the “Vanilla-Frosted Temple”: From Myth to Multiplex

13. Campbell, Science Fiction, and Space Age Myths

14. Campbell and the Inklings—Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams

15. The Power of Wilderness: Campbell and the Ecological Imperative

16. Campbell, America, and the Individual as New Hero

17. Campbell and the Perennial Philosophy: Social Sciences, Mysticism, and Myth