I'm covering (I purposely say covering, not teaching, since I've never 
read it myself) the Odyssey with my freshmen for the first time, and 
I've come across this list of requirements (?) steps (?) in "the hero's 
journey."  Where did this list come from?  Was it created relatively 
recently like a descriptive grammar?  Here're a bunch of hero stories, 
and here's a list of things we extrapolated from them?  Or is it more 
like a prescriptive grammar?  Here are the requirements for a hero's 
journey, and Homer happened to get them all right?

Any info out there about these ideas?

Del Hughes
Paradise High School
Paradise, CA


Del: What I think you are referring to is Lord Raglan's scale. If you google 
Lord Raglan's Hero's Journey, you will get all kinds of links, including this 
one, which is the one I loved and taught for a thousand years. Joseph 
Campbell, of course, has volumes on the hero, but this is a nifty, succinct 
pattern that is fun to apply to other heroes. On the Lord Raglan site there 
are ways to "score" various heroes and then ways to interpret them. I just 
read a wonderful story of a guide dog that saved over 900 lives on 9/11 and 
received a citation from Guliani; Daisy, the dog, would surely score right at 
the top, along with Odysseus.

Fran

Lord Raglan, in THE HERO (1936) has classified the parallel life-patterns of 
the mythical hero of tradition into twenty-two archetypal incidents, as noted 
below. The higher a particular hero scores, the closer he is to the 
UR-archetype of the sacred hero-king of prehistoric religious ritual; a 
historical hero is likely to share rather few of the mythical 
characteristics. 
. Note: this used to be a form, but as it never worked I've simply combined 
the results page with this one. 
LORD RAGLANS SCALE 
. The hero's mother is a royal virgin 
. His father is a king and 
. often a near relative of the mother, but 
. the circumstances of his conception are unusual, and 
. he is also reputed to be the son of a god 
. at birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or maternal grandfather, 
to kill him, but 
. He is spirited away, and 
. Reared by foster-parents in a far country 
. We are told nothing of his childhood, but 
. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom. 
. After a victory over the king and or giant, dragon, or wild beast 
. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor and 
. becomes king 
. For a time he reigns uneventfully and 
. Prescribes laws but 
. later loses favor with the gods and or his people and 
. Is driven from from the throne and the city after which 
. He meets with a mysterious death 
. often at the top of a hill. 
. his children, if any, do not succeed him. 
. his body is not buried, but nevertheless 
. he has one or more holy sepulchres. 


Del,
	
	I wanted to contribute to the Hero's Journey discussion. The
stages in the journey are not prescriptive; they are manifestations of
the essence of the journey. They "unfold" from the story rather than
being imposed on it. In a real sense, we are our journeys and the stages
are the psychological adjustments we go through.
	Joseph Campbell is the most well-known researcher of the journey
pattern, but there were many others. The earliest work was done simply
to establish a common pattern for heroic myths, with no intent of
analyzing or interpreting them. The most notable of the researchers were
Edward Taylor, Johann Georg Van Hahn and Vladimir Propp. All three
looked for parallels in the myths which could lead to the development of
a common pattern, all three had a "collective" hero that was male, but
none of them attempted an analysis for content or meaning. Taylor
(1871), perhaps the most interesting, believed that the similarity
between various hero myths suggested that they originated from a common
human condition as structures of the mind, a concept similar to the
archetypal model proposed later by Carl Jung and Campbell. 
	For analysis for content and meaning in the journey pattern,
four researchers are especially important: Freudian psychologist Otto
Rank (1884-1939), ritualist Lord Raglan (1885-1964), psychologist Carl
Jung, and Campbell (1904-1987). Each of these theorists approached the
journey pattern from a different position.
	Rank used Freudian analysis and saw hero myth as a fantastical
fulfillment of the Oedopal wish. He even suggested that reading or
creating hero myths was a sign of neurosis. Raglan espoused the
myth-ritual theory of Sir James Frazer, proposing that hero myths were
tied to rituals. He felt that an individual hero might have been real
(Buddha, for example), but that mythical elements were added to his
biography to honor him or to emphasize his heroic nature; therefore,
heroes are mythic, not historic. Jung and Campbell focused on
archetypes. For Jung the hero was a projection of the unconscious. The
heroic pattern is a manifestation of unconscious activity and can reveal
to us the contents of the unconscious. 
	Campbell's model is based on the theories of psychoanalysis,
with many concepts from Eastern philosophy. He viewed the heroic journey
in a mythical context. The symbols we encounter in myths, which are
creations of the psyche, are important because, if properly understood,
they provide clues to discovering the quests we need to take in life.
Campbell also explored the Call Refused and its psychological and
symbolic implications.
	My own recent research (three years in an MA program focusing on
the psychology of the journey) suggests that the journey pattern is
really an expression of the fundamental process of "being in the world."
This process is hermeneutic (interpretive) and circular. Essentially, it
begins as understanding projected through action and speech. Action and
speech engage us in the world of experience, and the feedback from that
engagement either validates or challenges our initial understanding. If
the feedback validates our understanding, we move along smoothly,
without the need to adjust. If it challenges our understanding, we have
two choices. We can adjust and expand our understanding (Call Accepted),
or we can reject or distort the feedback and retreat into a defensive
posture (Call Refused). We see these patterns in virtually any discourse
that explores the human condition.

Hope this helps.

Reg Harris


Joseph Campbell and Peter Stillman are two scholars off the top of my head who have done
much work on the hero's quest.  In Stillman's text _Introduction to Myth_ he defines various
hero elements, such as: the hero is of an obscure or mysterious origin, the hero encounters
dangers, obstacles, temptation, the hero is accompanied by friends, disciples, etc.  I can
snail mail you a copy that I use with my Mythology classes.  Or, you can get a video of
Campbell's interview in which he discusses the hero.  I can also snail mail you material on
The Odyssey, tons of it.  Let me know if you'd like any of this.

Sharon