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The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama
His mother is a virgin and he's reputed to be the son of a god; he loses favor and is driven from his kingdom to a sorrowful death — sound familiar? In The Hero, Lord Raglan contends that the heroic figures from myth and legend are invested with a common pattern that satisfies the human desire for idealization. Raglan outlines 22 characteristic themes or motifs from the heroic tales and illustrates his theory with events from the lives of characters from Oedipus (21 out of a possible 22 points) to Robin Hood (a modest 13).
A fascinating study that relates details from world literature with a lively wit and style, it was acclaimed by literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman as "a bold, speculative, and brilliantly convincing demonstration that myths are never historical but are fictional narratives derived from ritual dramas." This new edition of The Hero (which originally appeared some 13 years before Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces ) is assured of a lasting popularity. This book will appeal to scholars of folklore and mythology, history, literature, and general readers as well.
A fascinating study that relates details from world literature with a lively wit and style, it was acclaimed by literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman as "a bold, speculative, and brilliantly convincing demonstration that myths are never historical but are fictional narratives derived from ritual dramas." This new edition of The Hero (which originally appeared some 13 years before Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces ) is assured of a lasting popularity. This book will appeal to scholars of folklore and mythology, history, literature, and general readers as well.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
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About the author
FitzRoy Richard Somerset
5 books1 followerMajor FitzRoy Richard Somerset, 4th Baron Raglan was a British soldier, beekeeper, farmer and independent scholar. He is best known for his book The Hero, where he systematises hero myths.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 4, 2013
The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama (1936) by Lord Raglan is not the kind of book for the casual reader. The Hero is for those serious writers/professors willing to study the craft of writing and storytelling at a much more intellectual level.
"The thesis of this book," writes Lord Raglan, "is that the traditional narrative, in all its forms, is based not upon historical facts on the one hand or imaginative fictions on the other, but upon dramatic ritual or ritual drama...I then took a number of quasi-historical traditions and showed that there is no valid evidence for their historicity, and that many of them are demonstrably unhistorical. I next gave the evidence for connecting the myth and the folk-tale with ritual, and for believing that the hero-tale is derived from ritual and not from fact" (p 278).
Throughout the book Lord Raglan repeatedly shows that stories such as The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Tale of Troy, the Norse Sagas, Robin Hood, King Arthur, etc., are based on dramatic ritual and the heroes therein are set on 22 key characteristics (a pattern for the traditional hero). Many heroes that fell into this pattern were from cultures all over the world and from various religions as well. For example: Theseus (20/22), Romulus (18/22), Perseus (18), Pelops (13), Apollo (11), Zeus (15), Moses (20), Watu Gunung (14), Arthur (19), and Robin Hood (19/22). These are but a portion of heroes studied within the book.
Lord Raglan also defines the purpose of myth in relation to the hero. "Myth is ritual projected back into the past," writes Lord Raglan, "not a historical past of time, but a ritual past of eternity. It is a description of what should be done by a king (priest, chief, or magician) in order to secure and maintain the prosperity of his people, told in the form of a narrative of what a hero--that is, an ideal king, etc.--once did" (p 147).
A writer will take just as much pleasure from this book as a historian might. One of my favorite passages of the book concerns the criterion of a successful writer, and is as follows:
"Nobody can hope to be a successful poet or composer of stories unless he has familiarized himself with a large number of poems or stories of different types, both in their general outlines and in the details of their construction; and the better writers whose works he studies, the better are his own writings likely to be. This simple fact is, of course, the basis of all literary education. In addition, our budding author must, if he is to produce anything possessing the least degree of originality, observe and read a good deal, and thus acquire a large fund of ideas. By drawing upon these he will be able to vary the form and content of his writings; this is the most that he will be able to do, since imagination at its highest is no more than the combination of two or more old ideas to form a new idea" (p 136-137).
One of the reasons why I read this book was for research in my own writing, and to study in further depth the understanding of what makes a lasting and classical narrative and hero. After reading this book, I have learned more about the construct of myth, folk and fairy tales, sagas, the basis for drama and ritual dramas and the success of the age old heroes in narrative form. Actually, this is one of the most intelligent books I have read (to be compared with the works of Tertullian and Cicero and the likes). Therefore, this is a strong recommend for any serious-serious writer who wants to excel, or for any professor diving deeper into the depths of history, philosophy, religion, and literature.
"The thesis of this book," writes Lord Raglan, "is that the traditional narrative, in all its forms, is based not upon historical facts on the one hand or imaginative fictions on the other, but upon dramatic ritual or ritual drama...I then took a number of quasi-historical traditions and showed that there is no valid evidence for their historicity, and that many of them are demonstrably unhistorical. I next gave the evidence for connecting the myth and the folk-tale with ritual, and for believing that the hero-tale is derived from ritual and not from fact" (p 278).
Throughout the book Lord Raglan repeatedly shows that stories such as The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Tale of Troy, the Norse Sagas, Robin Hood, King Arthur, etc., are based on dramatic ritual and the heroes therein are set on 22 key characteristics (a pattern for the traditional hero). Many heroes that fell into this pattern were from cultures all over the world and from various religions as well. For example: Theseus (20/22), Romulus (18/22), Perseus (18), Pelops (13), Apollo (11), Zeus (15), Moses (20), Watu Gunung (14), Arthur (19), and Robin Hood (19/22). These are but a portion of heroes studied within the book.
Lord Raglan also defines the purpose of myth in relation to the hero. "Myth is ritual projected back into the past," writes Lord Raglan, "not a historical past of time, but a ritual past of eternity. It is a description of what should be done by a king (priest, chief, or magician) in order to secure and maintain the prosperity of his people, told in the form of a narrative of what a hero--that is, an ideal king, etc.--once did" (p 147).
A writer will take just as much pleasure from this book as a historian might. One of my favorite passages of the book concerns the criterion of a successful writer, and is as follows:
"Nobody can hope to be a successful poet or composer of stories unless he has familiarized himself with a large number of poems or stories of different types, both in their general outlines and in the details of their construction; and the better writers whose works he studies, the better are his own writings likely to be. This simple fact is, of course, the basis of all literary education. In addition, our budding author must, if he is to produce anything possessing the least degree of originality, observe and read a good deal, and thus acquire a large fund of ideas. By drawing upon these he will be able to vary the form and content of his writings; this is the most that he will be able to do, since imagination at its highest is no more than the combination of two or more old ideas to form a new idea" (p 136-137).
One of the reasons why I read this book was for research in my own writing, and to study in further depth the understanding of what makes a lasting and classical narrative and hero. After reading this book, I have learned more about the construct of myth, folk and fairy tales, sagas, the basis for drama and ritual dramas and the success of the age old heroes in narrative form. Actually, this is one of the most intelligent books I have read (to be compared with the works of Tertullian and Cicero and the likes). Therefore, this is a strong recommend for any serious-serious writer who wants to excel, or for any professor diving deeper into the depths of history, philosophy, religion, and literature.
October 14, 2022
I picked this book up a couple of years ago for a couple of quarters at a book sale, love at first sight with the vintage Ivan Chermayeff cover. (Needless to say, it’s not the one pictured above, nor can I even find a picture of it. This baby must be rare.) It’s sat on my desk for years just for the beauty of it. Now I can appreciate it differently, knowing how it reads.
Even in chapters on shape-shifting animals (yes, there’s a chapter on shape-shifting animals) there are little worthy tidbits: “Once the ritual and belief have come into existence, the power of suggestion is almost unlimited, but to allege that belief is instinctive is a very different thing.”
Even in chapters on shape-shifting animals (yes, there’s a chapter on shape-shifting animals) there are little worthy tidbits: “Once the ritual and belief have come into existence, the power of suggestion is almost unlimited, but to allege that belief is instinctive is a very different thing.”
September 20, 2021
Lord Raglan makes many intriguing observations regarding the Hero myth, however his central hypothesis - that all heroes of legend, here incorrectly called myths, are the product of rituals, giving rise to the lives of separate characters. It never occurs to him to ask where the plots of these rituals came from of not pre existing stories. He makes several other, smaller errors in applying his own (self-admittedly) arbitrary rubric to the study of the patterns of hero stories as well. A good read and some of his insights are valuable, but on the whole: missable.
October 11, 2020
3.5
A very important scholarly work. Perhaps it is most useful for writers. Many of Lord Raglan's suppositions and summations and conclusions have been disproved by scholarship and archeology since he wrote this work, nevertheless it remains an important milestone in the discussion of myth, folklore, legend, and the development of the hero motif.
A very important scholarly work. Perhaps it is most useful for writers. Many of Lord Raglan's suppositions and summations and conclusions have been disproved by scholarship and archeology since he wrote this work, nevertheless it remains an important milestone in the discussion of myth, folklore, legend, and the development of the hero motif.
January 25, 2010
I alot of info in how we take Tradition and Myth and fill our heads with them to make them true...
October 19, 2015
One of the first literary studies I ever read. It changed my view of literature.
August 3, 2016
Not the most exciting read, but definitely an interesting and novel interpretation of the development of myth, folktales, ritual, and drama and their interdependencies.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews