Joseph Campbell was responsible for putting forward what’s become the primary tool for analyzing mythological stories in our time, the monomyth. It’s a generic pattern of narrative activity composed of three main phases which the protagonist goes through: separation, initiation and return. Each of these is in turn broken down into individul phases. Campbell believes this pattern to be nearly universal and applied variations of it to a multitude of stories the world over throughout his career.

But what was the point? What was he getting at besides highlighting the similarities between the stories which cultures and religions have been based on throughout history? Certainly, emphasizing what people share over disagreements is itself a valuable goal. But I think what he was after goes rather beyond that.

Christianity, in its mainstream forms, rests of the Four Gospels, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. Each of these gospels tells the story of Jesus but from a slightly different perspective. The first three gospels, Matthew, Mark & Luke are called the synoptic gospels, from the Greek words “syn” for “together” and “opsis” for seeing. They tell the story of Jesus in a similar way where the three gospels can be read side-by-side for comparison. The Gospel of John however tells the story in a rather different way from those three. The point is that at the heart of one of the most potent stories in our cultural history, we are invited to compare them, we are asked to look for the monomyth of Jesus.

Similarly, I think this was Campbell’s goal, to provide a context which would allow the world’s religious and mythical stories to be taken as sort of Synoptic Gospels in their own right - to be read side-by-side as all telling one story, the monomyth, despire surface differences in their organization, symbolism and point of view.

Though probably the most popular of any such effort to synthesize the vast array of stories, Campbell’s monomyth was by no means the first or only. Propp’s structure of the magic tale, and Greimas’ actantial model are probably the sources which Campbell based his monomyth cycle upon. Additionally, he Aarne-Thompson folkore motif index was compiled in 1910 and sought to cross-reference folk and fairy tales according to their historical and cultural relationship with one another. It was later revised to catalog similar elements or motifs in stories, regardless of their historical origin. You can utilize the Aarne-Thompson index to look up motifs such as “talking fish” or “giant guards treasure” and then see a list of stories which contain that common element. One of the most important things you’ll see in the A-T index is that not all of these stories function according to Campbell’s monomythic pattern. The scholarly fields of narratology, semiotics and cultural theory also present a variety of approaches to deconstructing stories and how people relate to them. Psychology as well, especially Jungian, deals very much with these same areas.

The question, for me, is if there are so many other approaches to this, why did Joseph Campbell’s monomyth rise to such prominence that it’s still more or less the de facto standard? A major part of it, I think is that he really touched a nerve culturally. He tried to bring his work and these myths to a mass audience, beyond just academics who had been the main investigators in the field previously. I think he showed that ordinary people are very interested in the roots of religion and mythology, and practical applications for these areas in their own lives.

Most authors in the field nowadays though just seem to be rehashing his ideas ad nauseum, which I think is unfortunate because there’s a lot more ground to be covered. I’d like to see people pick up more on this idea of synoptics in order to weave stories together into some kind of really comprehensive enormous Gospel of Humanity.

Related Posts:

1. Parallel Stories In Christianity
2. Hero’s Journey as a model for integration