[canjobear]

I was into this idea until I actually read The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The book's template for the "monomyth" is extremely vague and has many optional elements, so many that any given pair of myths might consist of entirely disjoint elements. Campbell's evidence only comes from a few myths, which makes me worry about cherry-picking. I was sad to realize Kurt Vonnegut's summary of the monomyth is probably correct: "The hero gets into trouble. The hero gets out of trouble."

[nonamemanemo]

Vonnegut's summary is a good one, and I agree that the entire book could have been fully summarized in so few words - the hard question is what are those select few words capable of seeding all other possible stories? For me, the book made many good cases that there is something deeper and quite simple about all storytelling, without ever specifically defining it. I guess that is why storytelling is still such an interesting practice.

[huxley]

Not to mention that Campbell's monomyth borrows liberally from Otto Rank and Lord Raglan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank-Raglan_mythotype