Essay - Liberal Arts

Constructing Meaning from the Classic Tradition in the Liberal Arts

When you reread a classic you

do not see more in the book than

you did before; you see more in you

than there was before. (Clifton Fadiman)

Epic Literature, The Hero’s Journey and Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth

The Monomyth of the Hero

In the course of analyzing the myths and lore of various world cultures, mythologist Joseph Campbell observed an underlying similarity throughout the stories, and in fact perceived and articulated a storyline-structure he believed to be universal for

hero-myths. This storyline he called the monomyth. Provided below is an outline of the basic structure of the universal hero’s monomyth, which Campbell discusses in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Not only does the monomythic structure apply to classical Hero mythology, it can often be applied to contemporary stories and films as well.

I. Departure II. Initiation

- The Call to Adventure -The Road of Trials

- Refusal of the Call -The meeting with the Goddess

- Supernatural Aid -Woman as the Temptress

- The Crossing of the First Threshold -Atonement with the Father

- The Belly of the Whale -Apotheosis -The Ultimate Boon

III. Return

- Refusal of the Return

-The Magic Flight

-Rescue from Without

-The Crossing of the Return Threshold

- Master of the Two Worlds

-Freedom to Live

Epic literature contains both mythological and factual details. To help us comprehend and perhaps to apply the hero’s journey theme to our own life journeys – physical, emotional and/or spiritual – it may be helpful to observe Joseph Campbell’s model depicting various stages of the heroic quest and to read his advice concerning our own life’s journey.

Part I: The Wanderings of Odysseus. This reading assignment, features Books 1, 9, 10, and 12 from Homer’s ancient narrative poem. In this section Homer describes several adventures that Odysseus experiences as he and his men make their way back to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Odysseus and his crew encounter the giant Cyclops, the witch Circe, and the bewitching Sirens.

Part II: The Homecoming. In Books 21, 22, and 23, Homer relates the narrative details of Odysseus’ arrival in Ithaca after a 20-year absence; his battle with the suitors, who have overtaken his home; and his reunion with his faithful wife Penelope.

Class Exercise: Mapping our own Journeys and the Monomyth

Think about your own life as an epic journey. What characters/struggles can you relate to? What benefit is there to thinking with a myth in this way?

1. Analyze and discuss Tennyson’s Ulysses in relation to Campbell’s advice to “follow your bliss” (see passage below the poem).

Ulysses

(Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892)

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws to a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink

Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy’d

Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known, cities of men

And manner, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honor’d of them all,

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’

Gleams that untravel’d world whose margin fades

Forever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!

As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains; but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, my own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the scepter and the isle,

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill

This labor, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with

me,

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads, you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.

Death closes all; but something ere the end,

Some work of noble, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

“Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order to smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be the gulfs will wash us down;

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

“But if a person has had the sense of the Call — the feeling that there’s an adventure for him — and if he doesn’t follow that, but remains in the society because it’s safe and secure, then life dries up. And then he comes to that condition in late middle age: he’s gotten to the top of the ladder, and found that it’s against the wrong wall. If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, and opens up all along the line. I’m not superstitious, but I do believe in spiritual magic, you might say. I feel that if one follows what I call one’s bliss — the thing that really gets you deep in your gut and that you feel is your life — doors will open up. They do! They have in my life and they have in many lives that I know of.” (Joseph Campbell)

2. Analyze and discuss Ithaka by C. P. Cavakv in relation to Joseph Campbell’s comments which appear below the poem:

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

angry Poseidon – don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

wild Poseidon – you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.

May there be many a summer morning when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you come into the harbors seen for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber, and ebony

sensual perfume of every kind –

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better it lasts for years,

so you are old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey,

Without her you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

“We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it’s all about.” (Joseph Campbell)

3. Analyze and discuss Dorothy Parker’s Penelope in relation to your reading of Part II. The Homecoming in The Odyssey:

Penelope

(Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967)

In the pathway of the sun,

In the footsteps of a breeze,

Where the world and sky are one,

He shall ride the silver seas,

He shall cut the glittering wave.

I shall sit at home, and rock;

Rise, to heed a neighbor’s knock;

Brew my tea, and snip my thread;

Bleach the linen for my bed.

They will call him brave.