Joseph Campbell

The originator of the ideas that editor Eugene Kennedy has posthumously fashioned into a monograph, Joseph Campbell emerges as a media star talking about mythology after the New York Times Magazine publishes an interview in April 1979, which attracts the attention of Bill Moyers, who in 1988 airs on the PBS the series, The Power of Myth. This book results from Kennedy's piecing together what Campbell leaves behind in notes, interviews, and responses to questions following lectures. Campbell's personality is very much a part of the book, making him the most important figure.

Born in New York City in 1904, and raised a Roman Catholic, he becomes interested in mythology as a child. He is fascinated by American Indian cultures and drifts away from narrow, childish Catholicism. He specializes in medieval literature in college, in Europe is influenced by Picasso, Matisse, Joyce, and Mann, and studies Freud and Jung, who...