Ten important books of the mythopoetic men's movement.
“mythopoetic movement: looking at myths, legends and folktales, as a tool for personal insight.”
- Anonymous
"Iron John: A Book About Men" by Robert Bly - This classic work is widely considered to be the seminal text of the mythopoetic men's movement and explores the archetypal aspects of masculinity and the importance of male bonding and initiation rituals.
"The Wild Man: The Imagination of the Male Psyche" by James Hillman - This book explores the mythological and psychological roots of the "wild man" archetype and its relevance to contemporary men.
"The Way of Men" by Jack Donovan - This book provides a modern, evolutionary understanding of masculinity and argues that traditional masculine virtues are still relevant in today's world.
"The Rediscovery of the Wild" edited by David Ehrenfeld - This collection of essays explores the spiritual and cultural dimensions of the wild man archetype and its significance for contemporary men.
"The Quest for the Male Soul: A Mythopoetic Approach to Men's Issues" edited by Sam Keen - This collection of essays by leading mythopoetic writers explores the challenges facing contemporary men and offers a vision for the future of masculinity.
"The Father's Way: A Call to Return to Patriarchy" by Mark Gerard - This book explores the importance of fatherhood and patriarchy in shaping masculine identity and argues for a return to traditional masculine values.
"Men and the Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of Men" by Michael Meade - This book explores the significance of initiation rituals in the development of masculine identity and argues for the need for contemporary men to undergo a similar rite of passage.
"The New Warriors: Reclaiming the Masculine Mystique" edited by Robert Bly - This collection of essays by leading mythopoetic writers explores the contemporary challenges facing men and offers a vision for the future of masculinity.
"The Malepassions: A Study of Masculine Archetypes" by Michael J. Zimmer - This book explores the various archetypes of masculinity and their significance for contemporary men.
"The Men's Bibliography: A Comprehensive Bibliography of Writing on Men, Masculinity, Gender, and Sexualities" edited by Michael S. Kimmel and Amy Aronson - This comprehensive bibliography provides a wealth of information on the mythopoetic men's movement and related fields, including men's studies, masculinity studies, and gender studies.
These books offer a range of perspectives on the mythopoetic men's movement, exploring the archetypal and cultural dimensions of masculinity and offering a vision for the future of men and masculinity.
wikipedia entry:
The mythopoetic men's movement was a body of self-help activities and therapeutic workshops and retreats for men undertaken by various organizations and authors in the United States from the early 1980s through the 1990s. The term mythopoetic was coined by professor Shepherd Bliss in preference to the term "New Age men's movement" (though "mythopoeia" was coined by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s, and has a different meaning). Mythopoets adopted a general style of psychological self-help inspired by the work of Robert Bly, Robert A. Johnson, Joseph Campbell, and other Jungian authors. The group activities used in the movement were largely influenced by ideas derived from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, known as Jungian psychology, e.g., Jungian archetypes, from which the use of myths and fairy tales taken from various cultures served as ways to interpret challenges facing men in society.
Groups formed during the mythopoetic men's movement typically avoided political and social advocacy in favor of therapeutic workshops and wilderness retreats, often using Native American rituals such as drumming, chanting, and sweat lodges. These rituals were done with the aim of personal growth of participants with an intended purpose of connecting spiritually with a lost deep masculine identity or inner self. The most well-known text of the movement was Iron John: A Book About Men by the poet Robert Bly, who argued that "male energy" had been diluted through modern social institutions such as the feminist movement, industrialization, and separation of fathers from family life through working outside the home. Bly urged men to recover a pre-industrial conception of masculinity through spiritual camaraderie with other men in male-only gatherings. The purpose of these activities was to foster greater understanding of the forces influencing the roles of men in modern society and how these changes affect behavior, self awareness, and identity.
In analytical psychology (or "Jungian psychology"), the puer aeternus is an example of what Jung considered an archetype, one of the "primordial, structural elements of the human psyche." Jungian psychologist James Hillman incorporates logic and rational thought, as well as reference to case histories of well known people in society, in the discussion of the contemporary male psyche. Hillman has spoken in-depth on subjects such as "the boy inside each of us," and pursues strategies to acknowledge, co-exist, and ultimately father immature parts of men to turn them instead into sources of passion and energy. Hillman's arguments are considered to be in line with the consideration of a puer aeternus or "eternal youth" archetype.
Sometimes mistakenly referred to simply as the men's movement, which is much broader, the mythopoetic movement is best known for the rituals that take place during their gatherings. While most in the public eye during the early 1990s, the movement carries on more quietly in The ManKind Project and independent psychologico-spiritual practitioners.
