The Hero with a Thousand Faces | Characters & Character Analysis

The Hero with a Thousand Faces Important People

The Author (Joseph Campbell)

Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was an American teacher, lecturer, and writer whose work was almost exclusively in the field of mythology. He studied and commented on numerous aspects of myth - its function, history, and cultural context, the similarities and differences between the various myths of various societies, and the relationship between myth and human psychology. To study this particular aspect of myth, Campbell also studied the work of noted psycho-analysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung (see below), finding parallels between his work and theirs that, in Campbell's mind, make myth something substantially more than the stories of gods and goddesses.

Over the years, and over the course of a number of books, Campbell developed the theory that myths, throughout culture and throughout the world, expressed fundamental aspects of the human condition. These aspects included everything from the relationship of an individual to his parents, through the relationship of the individual...
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