CAMPBELL, JOSEPH

Editor, essayist, mythologist; b. New Rochelle, N.Y., March 26, 1904; d. Oct. 31, 1987. Campbell helped to create an interpretive genre in which psychoanalytical techniques were used to elucidate mythology and folklore. As Campbell pointed out in his most famous work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), myth stands at the interface of the human and mystery that continually beckons the human to move beyond itself. For Campbell, myths provided the human with the means for self-transformation; yet, myths themselves needed to be rediscovered by each society. His legacy as an interpreter of the inner psychological meaning of myth and symbol is a challenge to both traditional religions and clinical psychologies. His emphasis on the universal character of mythology developed out of his personal story, which brought him into the diverse stream of mythic writings.

Life. As a youth Campbell read the Arthurian legends and Native American mythology at the local library. The American Museum of Natural History in New York City further stimulated these formative encounters with Indian religious art and the ethnographic literature being collected by anthropologists. He attended Canterbury School in Connecticut and Dartmouth College before going to Columbia University for his B.A. and M.A. in literature in 1925 and 1927 respectively.

In 1927 Campbell went to Europe to prepare for dissertation work in European Romance literature. His intellectual and personal encounters during this period altered the course of his life. He studied medieval French at the University of Paris and Sanskrit at Munich. Campbell's early interest in tribal art and mythology was being echoed by such artists as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque whose works manifested African and Native American influences. His readings in Nietzsche and Spengler gave him the critical distance he sought from which to describe the ennui and unrest of Euro-American societies. In literature Campbell entered the dream realms of James Joyce and Thomas Mann. Perhaps most important were his readings in Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung whose psychoanalytical techniques opened new questions about the unconscious structure of individual myth and the quest for a meaningful life. Jung's psychology especially influenced Campbell, who saw it as an inquiry into the collective dream of myths whereby individuals and societies aspire to integration. The variety and extent of these creative influences reoriented Campbell towards his doctoral work.

When he returned to New York in 1929 he found resistance at Columbia to his proposal to study mythical themes in literature. He abandoned his graduate program and, as the Great Depression deepened, withdrew to Woodstock, New York. For the next five years he read widely and voraciously, living on funds he had saved from a college stint as a jazz band musician.

During this period he traveled to California, where he met John Steinbeck and the biologist Edward Ricketts. On returning to the East coast he took a post teaching at Canterbury School. In 1934 he joined the literature faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, where he taught for 38 years. The unique tutorial-seminar system at this college afforded Campbell the opportunity to develop his particular interpretive style in the classroom and in personal conferences with students. Joseph Campbell's marriage in 1938 to the dancer Jean Erdman brought him into closer contact with another expression of myth and symbol.

Works. During these years of teaching and expanding his contacts with others interested in mythology, he joined with Henry Robinson to coauthor A Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake (1944). This interpretive guide to Joyce's novel had been preceded by Campbell's commentary on the first volume of the Bollingen Series, Where the Two Came to Their Father: A Navaho War Ceremonial (1943). These two works illustrate the disparate literatures in which Campbell was able to study using his mythic analysis of themes.

In his many works on myth Campbell developed a fourfold interpretive schema that can be found in The Mythic Image (1974) and also in his penultimate work, The Historical Atlas of World Mythology: The Way of the Animal Powers (1983). These include the mystical, epistemological, sociological, and pedagogical aspects of myth. He stressed the mystical dimension of mythology, which evokes a sense of the numinous mystery in the universe. Secondly, he pointed out the epistemological function of mythology, which gives people a comprehensive means for knowing the world about them. Campbell next stressed the sociological character of mythology— namely, its function in promoting social order and ideals. Finally, he cited as seminal the pedagogical role of myths, which enable individuals to guide themselves through the difficult passages of their lives.

This interpretation of myth by Joseph Campbell has been seen by some reviewers as being in tension with the revelations of Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion. Campbell's critical focus regarding religion hinged on the question of key teachings as being mythological or ontological. The meaning of religion for Campbell was not in the realm of "being"; rather, he saw religion as dynamized by deeper unconscious forces that could be articulated in many forms. Campbell himself was deeply committed to the spiritual quest, and his final work, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Methapor as Myth and as Religion (1986), continued to explore the mythic meaning of words and the psychological depths in which they reverberated.

Campbell's friendship with the Indologist Heinrich Zimmer led directly to his editing Zimmer's manuscripts after his death in 1943. This work culminated in the two volume edition of The Art of Indian Asia: Its Mythology and Transformation (1955). Zimmer had also introduced Campbell to the editors of the planned Bollingen series, which resulted in his eventual editing of the Jungian Conference's Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks (1954–68). Campbell's indefatigable editing skills also extended to such projects as The Portable Arabian Nights (1952), The Masks of God (1959–68), and The Portable Jung (1971).

Bibliography: A good guide is Robert Seagal's Joseph Campbell, An Introduction, which does not include his extensive audio and visual cassettes. j. campbell, A Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake with h. m. robinson (New York 1944); The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Bollingen Series XVII (New York 1949); The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension (New York 1969); The Masks of God, v. 1 Primitive Mythology (New York 1959), v. 2 Oriental Mythology (New York 1962), v. 3 Occidental Mythology (New York 1964), v. 4 Creative Mythology (New York 1968); Myths to Live By (New York 1972); The Mythic Image, with m. j. abadie, Bollingen Series C (Princeton 1974); Historical Atlas of World Mythology, v. 1 The Way of the Animal Powers (San Francisco 1983); The Inner Reaches of Outer Space (New York 1986). j. campbell, ed., Myth and Man Series (London/New York 1951–54); The Portable Arabian Nights (New York 1952); Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, tr. r. manheim and r. f. c. hull, Bollingen Series XXX (New York/Princeton 1954–68); Myths, Dreams, and Religion (New York 1970); The Portable Jung, tr. r. f. c. hull (New York 1971).

[j. a. grim]