42 Facts About Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion.

Joseph Campbell's work covers many aspects of the human experience.

Since the publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell's theories have been applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists.

Joseph Campbell was born in White Plains, New York, on March 26,1904, the elder son of hosiery importer and wholesaler Charles William Campbell, from Waltham, Massachusetts, and Josephine, from New York.

In 1921, Joseph Campbell graduated from the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut.

Joseph Campbell transferred to Columbia University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1925 and a Master of Arts degree in medieval literature in 1927.

Joseph Campbell studied Old French, Provencal, and Sanskrit at the University of Paris and the University of Munich.

Joseph Campbell learned to read and speak French and German.

On his return to Columbia University in 1929, Joseph Campbell expressed a desire to pursue the study of Sanskrit and modern art in addition to medieval literature.

Joseph Campbell traveled to California for a year, continuing his independent studies and becoming a close friend of the budding writer John Steinbeck and his wife Carol.

Joseph Campbell had met Carol's sister, Idell, on a Honolulu cruise and she introduced him to the Steinbecks.

Joseph Campbell lived for a while next door to Ricketts, participated in professional and social activities at his neighbor's, and accompanied him, along with Xenia and Sasha Kashevaroff, on a 1932 journey to Juneau, Alaska on the Grampus.

Joseph Campbell began writing a novel centered on Ricketts as a hero but, unlike Steinbeck, did not complete his book.

Joseph Campbell would refer to those days as a time when everything in his life was taking shape.

Joseph Campbell continued his independent reading while teaching for a year in 1933 at the Canterbury School in Connecticut, during which time he attempted to publish works of fiction.

In 1934, Joseph Campbell accepted a position as Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York.

Early in World War II, Joseph Campbell attended a lecture by the Indologist Heinrich Zimmer; the two men became good friends.

Joseph Campbell spent six months in southern Asia and another six in East Asia.

In 1972, Joseph Campbell retired from Sarah Lawrence College, after having taught there for 38 years.

Joseph Campbell died at his home in Honolulu, Hawaii, on October 30,1987, from complications of esophageal cancer.

Joseph Campbell often referred to the work of modern writers James Joyce and Thomas Mann in his lectures and writings, as well as to the art of Pablo Picasso.

Joseph Campbell was introduced to their work during his stay as a graduate student in Paris.

The works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche had a profound effect on Joseph Campbell's thinking; he quoted their writing frequently.

The "follow your bliss" philosophy attributed to Joseph Campbell following the original broadcast of The Power of Myth derives from the Hindu Upanishads; however, Joseph Campbell was possibly influenced by the 1922 Sinclair Lewis novel Babbitt.

Joseph Campbell was influenced by the psychological work of Abraham Maslow and Stanislav Grof.

Joseph Campbell's ideas regarding myth and its relation to the human psyche are dependent in part on the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud, but in particular on the work of Jung, whose studies of human psychology greatly influenced Joseph Campbell.

Joseph Campbell often referred to the ideas of Adolf Bastian and his distinction between what he called "folk" and "elementary" ideas, the latter referring to the prime matter of monomyth while the former to the multitude of local forms the myth takes in order to remain an up-to-date carrier of sacred meanings.

The central pattern most studied by Joseph Campbell is often referred to as "the hero's journey" and was first described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

An enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, Joseph Campbell borrowed the term "monomyth" from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Joseph Campbell made heavy use of Carl Jung's theories on the structure of the human psyche, and he often used terms such as anima, animus and ego consciousness.

Joseph Campbell often described mythology as having a fourfold function within human society.

The linkage between Star Wars and Joseph Campbell was further reinforced when later reprints of Joseph Campbell's book used the image of Luke Skywalker on the cover.

In 1984, Joseph Campbell gave a lecture at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, with Lucas in the audience, who was introduced through their mutual friend Barbara McClintock.

Joseph Campbell saw this not merely as a mantra, but as a helpful guide to the individual along the hero journey that each of us walks through life:.

Joseph Campbell began sharing this idea with students during his lectures in the 1970s.

Joseph Campbell had no clue as to what he was talking about; he had the most superficial knowledge of India but he could use it for his own aggrandizement.

In 1991, Masson accused Joseph Campbell of "hidden anti-Semitism" and "fascination with conservative, semifascistic views".

The first published work that bore Joseph Campbell's name was Where the Two Came to Their Father, an account of a Navajo ceremony that was performed by singer Jeff King and recorded by artist and ethnologist Maud Oakes, recounting the story of two young heroes who go to the hogan of their father, the Sun, and return with the power to destroy the monsters that are plaguing their people.

Joseph Campbell's first important book, A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, is a critical analysis of Joyce's final text Finnegans Wake.

From his days in college through the 1940s, Joseph Campbell turned his hand to writing fiction.

At the time of his death, Joseph Campbell was in the midst of working on a large-format, lavishly illustrated series titled Historical Atlas of World Mythology.

The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series is a project initiated by the Joseph Campbell Foundation to release new, authoritative editions of Campbell's published and unpublished writing, as well as audio and video recordings of his lectures.