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The monomyth: a universal template for heroic adventure.
via Wikipedia: Daci'en Temple · see source
The hero's journey, also known as the monomyth, is a common template of stories involving a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and returns transformed.
Quick Facts
- Location context
- Yanta District, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
Lore & Background
The hero's journey was popularized by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). Campbell described a narrative pattern: a hero ventures forth from the ordinary world into a region of supernatural wonder, encounters fabulous forces, wins a decisive victory, and returns with the power to bestow boons on others. The concept has been criticized by scholars as suffering from source-selection bias.
Reader's Guide
The hero's journey is not an in-game item. It is a narrative structure analyzed in narratology and comparative mythology.
Did You Know?
- Campbell borrowed the word 'monomyth' from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939).
- The hero's journey has been analyzed as an example of the sympathetic plot, a universal narrative structure.
- Early 20th-century figures such as Otto Rank and Lord Raglan proposed similar concepts before Campbell.
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