SOURCE: Hyles, Vernon R. “Campbell and the Inklings—Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams.” In Uses of Comparative Mythology: Essays on the Work of Joseph Campbell, edited by Kenneth L. Golden, pp. 211-22. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992.

In the following essay, Hyles finds parallels in the treatment of mythology in the works of Campbell, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams.

As a comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell charts the myth of the hero to develop his concept of bliss and to explain the place of sacrifice in myth. These dominant issues continue in all of Campbell's work, culminating in his series of interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth. Rebirth and archetypal repetition are part of the way Campbell looks at mythic patterns. Poets such as Blake, Yeats, and Hart Crane, and mythofabulists such as Joyce, García-Márquez, Barth, and the Inklings—J. R. R...