The Flight of the Wild Gander by Joseph Campbell
Publishing: 1969 The Viking Press; New York
Signed and Inscribed by Author on flyleaf
First Edition of Joseph Campbells first collection of essays.
Joseph Campbell was an American professor who wrote extensively on comparative mythology, specifically the concept of the monomyth, or journey of the archetypal hero that can be applied as a common template to a range of mythological narratives. He and other scholars described the narratives of Odysseus, Gautama Buddha, Moses, and Jesus Christ in terms of the monomyth. Adams’ Watership Down exhibits strong parallels to the epic themes of Homer’s Odyssey.
In Flight of the Wild Gander, mythologist Joseph Campbell 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
Condition: Publishers red cloth boards with title along the spine, dust jacket remains unclipped ($7.50) with minor creasing along the spine and corner edges- jacket protected in mylar,