monomyth

English

Etymology

mono- +‎ myth. Borrowed by Joseph Campbell[1] from Finnegans Wake.[2]

Noun

monomyth (plural monomyths)

  1. (mythology) A cyclical journey or quest undertaken by a mythical hero.
    • 2008, E. L. Risden, Heroes, Gods and the Role of Epiphany in English Epic Poetry‎, McFarland, →ISBN, page 143:
      Most male epics follow Joseph Campbell's monomyth pretty neatly; can we expect Barrett Browning to do the same? Is the monomyth a male construct, the “male-myth” rather than the unified myth that speaks for all, […]

See also

References
  1. Joseph Campbell (1949) The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Pantheon Books, published 1968, Prologue, page 30: “The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation—initiation—return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth.”
  2. James Joyce (1939) Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC, page 581: “At the carryfour with awlus plawshus, their happy-ass cloudious! And then and too the trivials! And their bivouac! And his monomyth! Ah ho!”

Further reading
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.