List Based On Books The Masks of God, Volume 4: Creative Mythology (The Masks of God #4)
| Title | : | The Masks of God, Volume 4: Creative Mythology (The Masks of God #4) |
| Author | : | Joseph Campbell |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 752 pages |
| Published | : | November 1st 1991 by Penguin (first published 1968) |
| Categories | : | Fantasy. Mythology. Nonfiction. Religion. History. Philosophy. Psychology |
Joseph Campbell
Paperback | Pages: 752 pages Rating: 4.3 | 1575 Users | 41 Reviews
Rendition As Books The Masks of God, Volume 4: Creative Mythology (The Masks of God #4)
OKAY. For as much as I generally love Campbell for his scholarship and his breadth and depth of knowledge on all things religious, mythical, and anthropological, I have to say he goes rather overboard in a DIFFERENT direction for this book. What direction, you ask? Living culture. And I'm not really talking about modern culture so much as I'm referring to the scope of the Dark Ages through Thomas Mann and James Joyce. He does the literary analysis thing. In spades. Want Beowulf? Check. Want tons of Parcival, Gawain, and even the tragic love story of Adelard and Heloise? Check. Want the erudite traditions, influences, mythological connections and cultural transformations laid out? You got it. But wait, that's not all! We get some of the best and fully explained nastiness of the truth behind chastity in Christianity and the best visceral descriptions I've ever read that makes me UNDERSTAND why the whole Romantic Love thing took off so HARD back at the opening days of the Rennaisance. Grail Legend? Chivalry? The whole love thing was bucking the Church and Society HARD. Trubadors were the punk bands of the day. :) We get the influence of Alchemy and Science in poetry, music, and opera. We get dozens of traditions, a great analysis that shows just how much Islamic thought is slathered throughout the Divine Comedy, and so much more. So what's my problem? It feels like half the book was devoted to fanboying over Thomas Mann and James Joyce. I mean, sure, these guys were like a wet dream for mythographers and sociologists and Jungian analysts and they wrote some fine fiction, too, but I would have been JUST FINE with... a slightly abbreviated analysis. Don't get me wrong! I'm now interested as hell in reading more of Thomas Mann and I may go ahead and revisit Joyce soon, but BY NO MEANS is this very good reading if you're not at least slightly interested in either author. Of course, if you're prepping yourself in College for writing one hell of a great essay on Joyce (or 14 of them), then DO YOURSELF A BIG FAVOR and read this book or the relevant sections. Some of it rather blew me away. :) Is this the best stuff Campbell ever wrote? Hell, no. It's very learned and I learned TONS, but it was almost nothing like what I had come to expect from him. More like he had been sitting around doing a lot of reading and his brilliant mind came up with fantastic random crap that sooner or later coalesced into a huge coherent literary epiphany. I think that's great and all but damn... I wanted the world, not fiction, THIS TIME. :)
Specify Books To The Masks of God, Volume 4: Creative Mythology (The Masks of God #4)
| Original Title: | Creative Mythology (The Masks of God, #4) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | The Masks of God #4 |
Rating Based On Books The Masks of God, Volume 4: Creative Mythology (The Masks of God #4)
Ratings: 4.3 From 1575 Users | 41 ReviewsCriticism Based On Books The Masks of God, Volume 4: Creative Mythology (The Masks of God #4)
After exploring ancient, Eastern, and Western mythology and religion up until the approximate time of the Dark Ages, Joseph Campbell's final volume of his Masks of God series deals with the "modern" world. As societies became increasingly mobile and fluid, the social purpose of religion and myth (transmission of local cultural "rules" to each generation, and the acceptance of those rules) fades in importance. Now what?Creative Mythology explores what happens as cultures begin to intermingle, howJust started re-reading this one. I got about halfway through last time and found so much good stuff in it last time that I thought I'd see what I pick up this time through.It's interesting that it starts with the time of the 'dark ages' since what I'm working on now, though set in modern day, has a kind of allegory of the idea of the dark ages.I really would like to learn more about Joseph Campbell. I know some basics of his ideas, but he has written a lot. I'll probably also be watching the
All the Joseph Campbell books scratch a really deep itch to understand your favorite stories in the grand context of the history of humanity. I haven't ventured past The Power of Myth, but I'm especially excited to challenge my preconceptions with some of the non western myths he discusses.
Mankind explained. The Manifestation.
Would like to get to this before reading Ulysses, since I've heard Campbell's take on Joyce totally transforms the way you see the work.
This book demands multiple re-readings of the text. Campbell does what he does best - deconstruct mythology - and some of his ideas regarding creation and art are quite striking and fresh indeed. While traditional mythologies are discussed here, (such as Le Morte d'Arthur) Campbell also likes to draw on distinctive and post-modern authors like Joyce and Mann when discussing novel mythological structures or narratives. This may be good or bad, depending on whether or not one likes these authors.
I'm obsessed with Joseph Campbell, and his words of wisdom are like the ambrosia of the gods to my un-mythologized mind. I think just about everything he writes is amazing. But on the scale of "kinda amazing" to "really FREAKING amazing," this book falls more in the range of "kinda amazing." All of the other books in the series fell in the "really FREAKING amazing" range. If you've read the other three books, no doubt you're going to read this one just to finish the series. So maybe my review is
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