In 1927, as a twenty-three-year-old postgraduate scholar in Paris, Joseph Campbell first encountered James Joyce’s Ulysses. Known for being praised and for kicking up controversy, the novel left Campbell both intrigued and confused, as it had many others. For the next sixty years, Campbell continued his study of Joyce’s work—writing and lecturing on Joyce using depth psychology, comparative religion, anthropology, and art history as tools of analysis.
Arranged by Joyce scholar Edmund L. Epstein, Mythic Worlds, Modern Words presents a wide range of Campbell’s writing and lectures on Joyce, which together form an illuminating running commentary on Joyce’s masterworks. Campbell’s visceral appreciation for all that was new in Joyce will delight the previously uninitiated, and perhaps intimidated, as well as longtime lovers of both Joyce and Campbell. We hope you’ll enjoy this excerpt from Epstein’s foreword to the book. (READ MORE)
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