Creative Mythology: Volume 4 (Masks of God) [Box set] [Hardcover]

Joseph Campbell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1969 | Series: Masks of God

The author of such acclaimed books as Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth discusses the primitive roots of mythology, examining them in light of the most recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A monument of learning, wonder, and wisdom, daringly conceived and brilliantly written by a man who is at home in the Eastern and the Western universe of spirit.… In temporal span and spatial scope and in relevance to the needs of its own day, it is unexampled."
—Henry A. Murray, Harvard University

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Joseph Campbell was interested in mythology since his childhood in New York, when he read books about American Indians, frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History, and was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles. He earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees at Columbia in 1925 and 1927 and went on to study medieval French and Sanskrit at the universities of Paris and Munich. After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 1940s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. The many books by Professor Campbell include The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Myths to Live By, The Flight of the Wild Gander, and The Mythic Image. He edited The Portable Arabian Nights, The Portable Jung, and other works. He died in 1987.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Viking Adult (April 1, 1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670461164
• ISBN-13: 978-0670461165
• Product Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 20 inches
• Shipping Weight: 20 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,050,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles. Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.
After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, and then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 40s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He also edited works by the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer on Indian art, myths, and philosophy. In 1944, with Henry Morton Robinson, Campbell published A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, came out in 1949 and was immediately well received; in time, it became acclaimed as a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey.
Throughout his life, he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically, authoring many books, including the four-volume series The Masks of God, Myths to Live By, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Joseph Campbell died in 1987. In 1988, a series of television interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, introduced Campbell's views to millions of people.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Voyage to Our Common Origin, June 8, 1999

By 

Tom Lombardo (Petaluma, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Masks of God, Vol. 1: Primitive Mythology (Paperback)

Along with "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," this is Campbell's greatest work. Campbell was a loving student of Native American cultures, and this book's historical achievement is to evaluate and compare all world mythologies as co-equal, including cogent and detailed examples from Native American mythology.

Campbell's core belief was that all humanity has a common origin, and that the study of mythology exposes this core identity amongst all peoples. By traversing the plains of time back to the very first artifacts of human behavior, he draws a compelling conclusion that we are all born of the same stock, from the same mythopoetic and spiritual origin, and destined to share the same future.

The student of humanity will find this study particularly compelling because Campbell identifies several mythological themes that span the globe. Among them are the virgin birth of a savior, the trial of the hero at the hands of evildoers, and the resurrection of the savior/hero from the dead. To my mind, these timeless echos of Christian beliefs place Western thought in an ancient and endlessly rewarding intellecutal context.

Campbell's higher purpose of showing that all humanity is united through its most fundamental ideas about the cosmos and our place in it is brilliantly synthesized in his discussion of the origin of agrigculture at the outset of the Neolithic. In the same way that all philosopy is "footnotes to Plato," all of history is "footnotes" to the Neolithic Revoltuion. Campbell handles this insight with a genius that must be read and re-read to truly appreciate.

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A massive effort, March 17, 2000

By 

frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Masks of God, Vol. 4: Creative Mythology (Paperback)

This last volume of the Masks of God is a huge book that spans the efforts of artists to interpret the myths from early troubadour poems to Finnegan's Wake. Just for the books it added to my reading list, this book was valuable.

The idea of the book that has stayed with me the most since I read it is the idea that an artist neither accepts myth as historical fact, nor rejects it as useless, but moves somewhere between those two extreme poles to mine its history.

The book is dense, and not always easy to read. It took me a long time to pick through it-- particularly in sections with pages of quotations-- but it was ultimately quite rewarding. Being only an amateur student of religion and mythology, I am ill-equipped to judge the merits of its scholarship.

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true mythic masterpiece, June 21, 2000

By 

Johannes Amersdorfer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Occidental Mythology (The Masks of God, Volume III) (Mass Market Paperback)

The master of Comparative Mythology delves into the themes, that underlie the art, beliefs and literature of the Western Soul. The third volume explains why the Western culture is so much different from the Eastern Way.

It enables the reader to step back and review his/her own culture from a more objective point of view. In the West, it is about the monotheistic belief, about God and Man as a seperate being. Therefore occidental myths establishes a means of relationship between God to Man and vice versa. He also shows up, why Christianism, Judaism and Islam are so similar and the fight over the "true God" is so ridiculous.

If you haven't read the first two volumes "Primitive Mythology" and "Oriental Mythology", go for them first!