This is a beautifully mounted and exquisitely illustrated, learned
expedition through the worlds of myth and dream. "Imagery,
especially the imagery of dreams, is the basis of mythology." The
illustrations range from Michelangelo and Blake to Van Gogh and
Jackson Pollock; many of the photographs are in color and all are
striking. The underlying psychology is Jungian, the Oriental
discipline accompanying it is that of Yoga, and the intellectual
conception throughout focuses on the interleaving of the
nonliterate or primitive traditions with the highly literate and
convoluted traditions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Joseph
Campbell's concern with comparative religions has always been
weighted in favor of the mystical elements inherent in any creed
rather than the ethical or social values which are also a part of
religious formulations. His mammoth Mythic Image naturally follows
this familiar trajectory. The book is dazzling but frankly a bit
difficult to follow if not to grasp. It has an air of academic
psychedelia. Everything is forever flowing into everything else:
the Gospel account of the Last Supper is related to the last meal
of Buddha, a few lines from Wordsworth are juxtaposed against lines
from the Chhandogya Upanishad. Or everything is being balanced by
some opposite: "male and female, active and contemplative, light
and dark." And there are so many variations on the theme of "unity
in duality," so much talk of gods and fertility cults, cosmic
wheels and cosmological views, the four elements and the four
seasons, that the reader is soon lost in reverie. Not surprisingly,
the most interesting writing doesn't come from Campbell at all, but
is to be found in a long extract he presents from Captain Cook's
eyewitness account of a bloody sacrifice in the South Seas. Much
thought and preparation went into this laudable undertaking;
unfortunately it never quite reaches the level of significance its
subject warrants. (Kirkus Reviews)
A paperback edition of Campbell's major study of the mythology
of the world's high civilizations over five millennia. It includes
nearly 450 illustrations. The text is the same as that of the 1974
edition.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell was a masterful storyteller, able to
weave tales from every corner of the world into compelling, even
spellbinding, narratives. His interest in comparative mythology
began in childhood, when the young Joe Campbell was taken to see
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at Madison Square Garden. He started
writing articles on Native American mythology in high school, and
the parallels between age-old myths and the mythic themes in
literature and dreams became a lifelong preoccupation. Campbell's
best-known work is "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (1949), which
became a "New York Times" paperback best-seller for Princeton in
1988 after Campbell's star turn on the Bill Moyers television
program "The Power of Myth."
During his early years as a professor of comparative religion
at Sarah Lawrence College, Campbell made the acquaintance of
Indologist Heinrich Zimmer, a kindred spirit who introduced him to
Paul and Mary Mellon, the founders of Bollingen Series. They chose
Campbell's "The Mythic Image" as the culmination of the series,
giving it the closing position--number one hundred. A lavishly
illustrated and beautifully produced study of the mythology of the
world's high civilizations, "The Mythic Image" received a
front-cover review in the "New York Times Book Review" upon
publication. Through the medium of visual art, the book explores
the relation of dreams to myth and demonstrates the important
differences between oriental and occidental interpretations of
dreams and life.
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