Jewett, Robert and John Shelton Lawrence. "Introduction." The American Monomyth. Garden City, USA: Anchor Press/Doubleday. 1977.
I can�t avoid sounding arrogant when I say this, but I am astounded at the lack of basic critical integrity in this book. I�ve read the forward and the first chapter, and they contain multiple factual errors that, to say the least, don�t fill me with confidence, but the content of the chapter almost seems like a text-book example of a misguided attempt to redeem popular culture�s importance by declaring that its audience is a bunch of mouth-breathing idiots.
Jewett and Lawrence seem determined to read Campbell�s Hero with a Thousand Faces in the exact opposite way it�s presented. I grant them the right to reinterpret him as they see fit, but they have to provide some reason for their readers to agree with them, and so far their reinterpretations seem like the product of lazy reading. As I said just earlier today, there are some very serious methodological problems with Hero, but J&L�s claims about the book are wildly inaccurate from almost the first moment they mention it.
�In [the book], Joseph Campbell depicted the archetypal plot of heroic action in traditional myths. The plot of the classical monomyth, as he called it, is as follow [�]�(xix, italics are original). He didn�t call it the �classical� monomyth. First, it�s a contradiction in terms; if there�s more than one, then it�s not a monomyth, is it? Second, his whole point is that the monomyth is a product of the universal character of the unconscious identified by Freudian and Jungian psychology; it�s been proven by psychologists that that model is not, in fact, universal, but Campbell�s claim is made clear in his introduction. Either J&L simply didn�t pay that much attention to the book, which honestly could be the case, or they invent this distinction to further their own critical effort.
Which is to say that J&L�s book professes an American monomyth without much addressing the concept of the monomyth, at least not in the introduction, which is where you�d sort of expect to see that. If they wanted to challenge or deconstruct the notion of a singular mythic super-structure, especially one based on Freudian/Jungian psychology, then they could have done so without too much trouble.
They could argue, for example, that though Campbell�s monomyth seems accurate in reference to Classical, Ancient, Christian, Buddhist, Chinese, and Indian mythology, as well as pre-contact aboriginal mythic structures of the Americas, Australasia, and Africa, American popular mythology behaves differently. They could argue that Campbell�s theories gloss over national character in general, and simply declare that their book fills in that gap for America, and other such books are possible in other countries/cultures. They could argue that Freud and Jung were simply on crack, which isn�t as tough as it sounds. All of these would have been perfectly legitimate ways to turn Campbell�s monomyth, clearly argued as a universal, into fodder for a national myth for pop culture in the US. They don�t do that, though. Instead, they misquote Campbell and coin the oxymoronic term �American monomyth.� Alas.
Posted by orion at May 7, 2006 10:54 PM