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Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension - Selected Essays, 1944-1968 (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) (edition 2002)
InFlight of the Wild Gander, renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell -- in his first collection of essays, written between 1944 and 1968 -- explores the individual and geographical origins of myth, outlining the full range of mythology from Grimm's fairy tales to American Indian legends. Originally published in 1969, this collection describes the symbolic content of stories: how they are linked to human experience and how they -- along with our experiences -- have changed over time. Throughout, Campbell explores the function of mythology in everyday life and the forms it may take in the future. Included are some of Campbell's first groundbreaking essays: "Bios and Mythos" and "Primitive Man as Metaphysician," both of which examine the biological basis and necessity for story and mythology, and establish mythology as a basic function or fact of nature. Campbell's essay "Mythogenesis" turns from the natural and biological to the cultural and historical -- the rise, flowering, and decline of a particular myth, a single American Indian legend. Campbell explores how the myth was born, as well as the personal experiences of the visionary medicine man through whose memory the myth was preserved. This new paperback edition joins other reissues and previously unpublished works as part of theCollected Works of Joseph Campbell.… (more)
From the earlier writings of Campbell but many of his ideas are already in place. Now that I'm more familiar with many of his references he is easier to read.
The writing of the following chapters occupied, or rather punctuated, a period of twenty-four years, during the whole course of which I was circling, and from many quarters striving to interpret, the mystery of mythology; to lift the veil, so to say, of that Goddess of the ancient temple of Saïs who could say with truth, and can say today, and will say to the end of time, ουδεις εμον πεπλον ανειλε, "no one has lifted my veil."
Quotations
Last words
For there is, in fact, in quiet places, a great deal of deep spiritual quest and finding now in progress in this world, outside the sanctified social centers, beyond their purview and control: in small groups, here and there, and more often, more typically (as anyone who looks about may learn), by ones and twos, there entering the forest at those points which they themselves have chosen, where they see it to be most dark, and there is no beaten way or path.
InFlight of the Wild Gander, renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell -- in his first collection of essays, written between 1944 and 1968 -- explores the individual and geographical origins of myth, outlining the full range of mythology from Grimm's fairy tales to American Indian legends. Originally published in 1969, this collection describes the symbolic content of stories: how they are linked to human experience and how they -- along with our experiences -- have changed over time. Throughout, Campbell explores the function of mythology in everyday life and the forms it may take in the future. Included are some of Campbell's first groundbreaking essays: "Bios and Mythos" and "Primitive Man as Metaphysician," both of which examine the biological basis and necessity for story and mythology, and establish mythology as a basic function or fact of nature. Campbell's essay "Mythogenesis" turns from the natural and biological to the cultural and historical -- the rise, flowering, and decline of a particular myth, a single American Indian legend. Campbell explores how the myth was born, as well as the personal experiences of the visionary medicine man through whose memory the myth was preserved. This new paperback edition joins other reissues and previously unpublished works as part of theCollected Works of Joseph Campbell.