

In laying out the monomyth, Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. In a well-known passage from the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell summarizes the monomyth:Ī hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. He calls the motif of the archetypal narrative, "the hero's adventure". The similarities of these myths brought Campbell to write his book in which he details the structure of the monomyth. Summary Ĭampbell explores the theory that mythological narratives frequently share a fundamental structure. In 2011, Time named it among the 100 most influential books written in English since 1923. The Joseph Campbell Foundation and New World Library issued a new edition of The Hero with a Thousand Faces in July 2008 as part of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series of books, audio and video recordings. Filmmaker George Lucas acknowledged Campbell's theory in mythology, and its influence on the Star Wars films. Since the publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell, in which the author discusses his theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world myths.
