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Here is “the master reading list for Campbell’s famous Introduction to Mythology class, which he taught at Sarah Lawrence College from the late 1930s to the mid-1970s. This reading list gives a sense of the material covered in this class, but also an insight into the authors and books that most influenced Campbell in his own thinking.” – taken from www.jcf.org
1. Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (Dodo Press) – By Henry Adams
2. Prometheus Bound (Greek Tragedy in New Translations) - By Aeschylus
3.Patterns of Culture – By Ruth Benedict
4.They Wrote on Clay: The Babylonian Tablets Speak Today (Phoenix Books) - By Edward Chiera
5.The Analects of Confucius – By Arthur Waley
6.The Dance Of Siva – By Ananda Coomaraswamy
7.Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti – By Maya Deren
8.The Elementary Forms of Religious Life – By Emile Durkheim
9.Euripides I: Alcestis, The Medea, The Heracleidae, Hippolytus (The Complete Greek Tragedies) (Vol 3) - By Euripides
10.The Golden Bough: Abridged Edition (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) - By James Frazer
11.The Interpretation of Dreams – By Sigmund Freud
12.Totem and Taboo (The Standard Edition) (Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud) - By Sigmund Freud
13.Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex – By Sigmund Freud
14.Moses and Monotheism – By Sigmund Freud
15. African Genesis: Folk Tales and Myths of Africa - By Leo Frobenius, Douglas C. Fox
16.The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales – By Brothers Grimm
17.Zen in the Art of Archery – By Eugen Herrigel
18.Death in Venice and Other Stories (Signet Classics) - By Thomas Mann
19.Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (Melville) – By Herman Melville
20.Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) By Friedrich Nietzsche
21.The Book of Tea (Stone Bridge Classics) – By Kakuzo Okakura
22.Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians (Native American) - By Edward Morris Opler
23.The Metamorphoses of Ovid – By Ovid
24.Phaedrus – By Plato
25.Symposium – By Plato
26.Oedipus Tyrannus: A New Translation. Passages from Ancient Authors. Religion and Psychology: Some Studies. Criticism – By Sophocles
27.Tales of the North American Indians (Native American) - By Stith Thompson
28.The Tao of the Tao Te Ching (Suny Series in Chinese Philosophy & Culture) (Suny Series, Chinese Philosophy & Culture) - By Michael LaFargue
29.The Art of War (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor) - By Sun Tzu
30.The Way of Zen – By Alan W. Watts
31.The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life - From Mariner Books
32.Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition) - From W. W. Norton & Company
33.The Bhagavad Gita (Oxford World’s Classics)
34.The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard edition – By Henry Wansbrough
35.The Koran (Penguin Classics) – By Anonymous
36.The Mabinogion (Penguin Classics) – By Anonymous
Which texts have you read? And/or what are some favourite extracts from them?
Big lover of Campbell. Two sets of ‘Masks’, one all dog eared, torn, and annotated, brighten my household. Read ‘The Hero With…’ at least twice, and due for another pass. One of the true Giants of the twentieth century, sadly though, almost going underground. Hopefully he takes deep root and one day nourishes a better tomorrow.
Nourishes a better tomorrow – how beautiful. I’m ‘wading’ through “Hero”, alongside “The Great Disruption” by Paul Gilding which seems apt as Campbell talked about the earth bringing cultures/people together, uniting them, almost as one religion.
Was contemplating another pass at the Masks Of God series, but turned to ‘Hero’ first instead. Books such as these, and there’s fewer of them than we think, are better with each reading. I’m always amazed that with all the casting about for answers going on around us, more people haven’t discovered or read good ole’ Joe.