954
PARTISAN REVIEW
Part I, entitled "The Adventure of the Hero," is divided into three
chapters, the first of which deals with the
departure
of the hero from
the land of his birth to the strange new land-the passage from adoles–
cence to maturity, from a lower to a higher order of existence, accord–
ing to the particular level of interpretation. The second chapter des–
cribes the variety of "trials" both physical and mental involved in his
initiation
into this world and subsequent Atonement with the Father.
The third deals with his return
and reintegration with society
after his
triumphant journey into the realm of the impersonal and universal. It
must be stated that Mr. Campbell does not reduce this process to a rigid
and undeviating pattern; he admits of all the modifications of form,
development and resolution which are the results of different cultural
emphases. The second half of the book is more philosophical and
theological in content and relates the more advanced world-teachers
like Buddha, Christ and Mohammed to the general pattern.
Whom does Mr. Campbell address? Surely none of the specialists
on whose fields he is compelled to poach. He is obviously first and fore–
most a literary man, as his predilection for literary sources indicates.
And it is unquestionably the alert, general reader, especially of modern
literature, who will find his work as useful as it is fascinating. We all
talk a great deal about the Myth nowadays. With Yeats, Joyce, Mann,
Eliot, and Pound exerting their influence all these years, how could we
do otherwise? But what we have long needed is just such an informa–
tive, orderly and reasonable analysis of the subject as the present work.
In the closing paragraphs of the eloquent final chapter "The Hero
FALL REASONS FOR
4
SEASONS:
BARGAINS
de Beauvoir, Simone-BLOOD OF 'OTHERS
Santayana, George-THE MIDDLE SPAN
BALZAC by Stephan Zweig
Briffault, Robert- NEW LIFE OF MR. MARTIN
Norwood, Hayden-MARBLE MAN' S WIFE
(Thomas Wolfe's mother's life )
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY by J. A. T . Lloyd
NEW WRITING
&
DAYLIGHT
pllb. at
ollr price
3.00
1.00
2.50
1.00
3.75
1.25
3.00
1.00
2.75
1.25
3.50
1.50
ed. by John Lehmann
3.00
1.25
NEW ROAD 4 ed. by Fred Marn au
3.50
1.25
4
seasons - books
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