Biographie de l'auteur :
Joseph Campbell was interested in mythology since his childhood in New York, when he read books about American Indians, frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History, and was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles. He earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees at Columbia in 1925 and 1927 and went on to study medieval French and Sanskrit at the universities of Paris and Munich. After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 1940s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. The many books by Professor Campbell include The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Myths to Live By, The Flight of the Wild Gander, and The Mythic Image. He edited The Portable Arabian Nights, The Portable Jung, and other works. He died in 1987.
Présentation de l'éditeur :
In the second volume of his monumental work, 'The Masks of God', Joseph Campbell explores oriental mythology as it developed into the distinctive religions of Egypt, India, China and Japan. These religions differ widely in preoccupation and observance from religions that developed in the West though they spring from a single root - the ancient civilisation of Sumer, in what is now Iraq. In the West the myths tell of the knowledge of good and evil while in the East they dwell on the fruit of knowledge. As the Eastern branch spread and subdivided across Asia, manifesting itself in ever more varying modes of thought and expression so Joseph Campbell explains, through philosophy and literature, what they retain from the root that created them.
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