Tag Archives: Joseph Campbell

Overcoming the Siren Call of Domination

By Robin Bates | Published: February 9, 2020

A reader suggests that the island enchantresses in “Odyssey” help the hero in his quest for integration.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Carl Jung, emasculation fears, Homer, individuation, Odyssey, Sigmund Freud | Comments closed

Fantasy and the Problem of Violence

By Robin Bates | Published: June 5, 2019

Thursday Today I will be delivering the following talk as part of Sewanee’s Lifelong Learning series, delivered in a venue that used to be my high school and where I spoke 50 years ago. It may sound strange to some of you that a literary scholar such as myself would talk about fantasy. Aren’t we […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Beowulf, Beowulf poet, Carl Jung, fantasy, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Sigmund Freud, violence | Comments closed

Will Odysseus Shape 2020 Election?

By Robin Bates | Published: April 14, 2019

Monday I won’t take credit for this but Washington Post’s Molly Roberts recently penned a very Better-Living-with Beowulf type column where she contrasted two Democratic presidential candidates by examining which version of the Odysseus/Ulysses story they prefer. Her piece gives me an excuse to apply other versions of the story to various 2020 contenders. Roberts […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 2020 election, Aeneid, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Beto O'Rourke, Donald Trump, Finnegans Wake, Homer, James Joyce, Joe Biden, Odyssey, Pete Buttigieg, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Virgil | Comments closed

Star Wars & Thousand-Faced Heroes

By Robin Bates | Published: December 16, 2015

A poem by Katy Giebenhain about “Star Wars” shows the flaws of its Joseph Campbell roots. She notes that “the hero doesn’t get/through anything alone.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Force Awakens, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Journey of the Hero, Katy Giebenhain, monomyth, postmodernism, Star Wars | Comments closed

Jeb! Agonistes: An Unsettling Parallel

By Robin Bates | Published: November 1, 2015

Does Jeb Bush resemble at the moment Samson Agonistes? His rivalry with Marco Rubio also resembles any number of Shakespeare tragedies. There’s an Oedipus parallel as well.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 2016 election, GOP, GOP primary, Henry IV Part II, Jeb Bush, John Milton, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Marco Rubio, Oedipus, politics, Samson Agonistes, Sophocles, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

The Journey of the Reader Hero

By Robin Bates | Published: April 27, 2015

Reading literature can be compared to Joseph Campbell’s “Journey of the Hero.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Carl Jung, Hero with a Thousand Faces, hero's journey, individuation | Comments closed

Why Read Lit? Let Me Count the Reasons

By Robin Bates | Published: April 20, 2015

I grapple today about why it is essential to read lit. And what happens to us when we don’t.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Blossom", Asphodel, ethical reading, Great House, Hero with a Thousand Faces, John Milton, Mary Oliver, Nicole Krauss, Paradise Lost, reading, William Carlos Williams | Comments closed

A Spiritual Quest Begins inside a Whale

By Robin Bates | Published: February 9, 2014

According to Joseph Campbell, a hero’s journey invariably involves a “belly of the whale” experience. Tokien describes the experience in fantasy, Dan Albergotti in everyday life.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale", belly of the whale, Dan Albergotti, Hero with a Thousand Faces, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jonah, Lord of the Rings | Comments closed

“Harry, I Am Your Father” – Voldemort

By Robin Bates | Published: April 16, 2012

Voldemort can be interpreted as the father in Harry Potter’s primal scene.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Brothers Karamazov, Carl Jung, fathers, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, Maturation, Oedipus complex, Sigmund Freud | Comments closed