The Hero in Literature

Through the ages, the concept of heroism has changed to reflect the total experience of man: ancient Greece and Rome produced heroic warriors; feudalism produced King Arthur, whose knights attained valor in the service of love; the Romantic hero of the bourgeois age, paralyzed by doubt, is primarily a revel against a background to which he is secretly attached, torn between militant desires and a chronic sense of guilt.The "hero" is man's poetic projection of himself as he faces the meaning or meaninglessness of life; the hero's role is to challenge the powers that escape human understanding. And changing concepts of heroism reflect basic cultural shifts. Thus, the essays in this volume, invaluable as background for the study of literature, also constitute a significant contribution to cultural history. Included are essays by:C. M. Bowra • Thomas Greene • Cedric Whitman • Bernard Knox • Charles Moorman • Eugene Waith • John Steadman • G. W. F. Hegel • Georg Lukács • Frederick Garber • Raymond Giraud • R. P. Blackmur • Edith Kern • Joseph Campbell • Victor Brombert