Campbell, Joseph
CAMPBELL, JOSEPH (1904–1987). Joseph Campbell was perhaps the best-known mythologist of the twentieth century. His fame was largely due to his highly acclaimed public television interviews with Bill Moyers in 1985–1986 and his posthumously published best-selling book, The Power of Myth (1988), based on that series, and in no small part to movie director George Lucas, who gave Campbell credit for inspiring his movie Star Wars (1977). Campbell's books on myth had many admirers, from literary critics who found his analysis of hero myths interpretatively rich, to the general public, who loved Campbell's retellings of his "myths to live by." Campbell believed that the world's great myths symbolized the ultimate human spiritual goal of living joyfully and mystically, at one with one's true self and the cosmos, and generations of fans took his advice to "follow your own bliss."
Early Years
Campbell was born in New York City in 1904 to a prosperous Irish-American family who gave their gifted child every advantage. He was trained in Roman Catholicism at parochial school, but became fascinated by non-Western traditions after seeing American Indians at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Campbell read widely, including many Indian myths that, he noticed, shared common motifs with stories from the Bible.
