Heroes of Middle-Earth

When Joseph Campbell introduced his idea of the monomyth or Hero's Journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he used examples of main charachters from folklore, myths and legends. Although his idea seemed to apply to the heroes in these stories, it wasn't certain that it could be transferred to apply to heroes in common literature. This book means to test two things: whether his ideas of the monomyth apply to fakelore as well, and also whether other charachters aside from main charachters have a hero's journey too. The reader will be given information on both Joseph Campbell's theory as well as Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings before an extensive analysis of five charachters: Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Eowyn and Gandalf. This should be especially useful for anyone interested in the use of Campbell's theory in literature and writing.

Autorentext

Tutta Kesti, MPhil, Studied English Philology at University of Jyväskylä.

Klappentext

When Joseph Campbell introduced his idea of the monomyth or Hero's Journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he used examples of main charachters from folklore, myths and legends. Although his idea seemed to apply to the heroes in these stories, it wasn't certain that it could be transferred to apply to heroes in common literature. This book means to test two things: whether his ideas of the monomyth apply to fakelore as well, and also whether other charachters aside from main charachters have a hero's journey too. The reader will be given information on both Joseph Campbell's theory as well as Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings before an extensive analysis of five charachters: Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Eowyn and Gandalf. This should be especially useful for anyone interested in the use of Campbell's theory in literature and writing.