In Quest of the Hero

In Quest of the Hero

Cover
Author	Robert A. Segal (Introduction), Otto Rank, Lord Raglan, Alan Dundes
Language	English
Subject	Hero, Comparative mythology, Psychoanalysis, Folklore
Genre	Academic anthology
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Publication date	1990
Publication place	United States
Media type	Paperback
ISBN	0-691-02062-0

In Quest of the Hero is a 1990 academic anthology published by Princeton University Press that gathers foundational 20th-century studies on comparative hero mythology. ^[1] The volume assembles seminal essays by psychoanalyst Otto Rank, myth-ritual theorist Lord Raglan, and folklorist Alan Dundes, alongside a new introduction by scholar Robert A. Segal. ^[2] Together the texts present psychoanalytic, Frazerian, and folkloristic interpretations of the hero pattern, a recurring narrative structure found in hero biographies worldwide. Segal's introduction traces the development of hero pattern scholarship and compares the methodologies advanced by the collection's authors. ^[3]

Contents

The book is organized into an introduction and three main parts, each featuring a key text in hero studies. The book opens with an introduction by Robert A. Segal, followed by three seminal texts in hero studies: the first edition of Otto Rank's The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (1909), Lord Raglan's The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama (1936), and Alan Dundes's The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus (1976). Each section presents groundbreaking scholarship that shaped the field of comparative hero mythology through different theoretical lenses.

Segal's analysis

Segal's introduction provides a historiographic framework for the three collected works. He recounts how 19th-century anthropologists such as Edward Burnett Tylor and folklorist Johann Georg von Hahn identified cross-cultural hero motifs without fully explaining their purpose. ^[1] Segal positions Rank, Raglan, and Dundes as leading 20th-century theorists who shift the discussion from cataloging similarities to interpreting their psychological and social meanings. ^[4]

He situates each author within a major school of thought. Rank represents Freudian psychoanalysis applied to childhood origin myth, Raglan writes within the British myth-ritual tradition shaped by James George Frazer's The Golden Bough , and Dundes advances a modern folkloristic method that separates narrative analysis from debates over historicity. ^[1] Segal contrasts their conclusions, noting that Rank interprets myth as a family psychodrama, Raglan as a ritual reenactment of the divine king, and Dundes as a traditional narrative schema that guides cultural memory. ^[3]

Rank

Part I reprints Otto Rank's The Myth of the Birth of the Hero , originally published in German in 1909. Rank, a close disciple of Sigmund Freud, analyzes fifteen myths from various cultures, including those of Sargon, Moses, Oedipus, and Jesus. ^[1] He outlines a "standard saga" that he argues is common to these stories. According to Rank's framework, the hero's life follows a clear sequence ^[1] :

The hero is the child of most distinguished parents, usually the son of a king. His origin is preceded by difficulties, such as continence, or prolonged barrenness, or secret intercourse of the parents due to external prohibition or obstacles. During or before the pregnancy, there is a prophecy, in the form of a dream or oracle, cautioning against his birth, and usually threatening danger to the father (or his representative). As a rule, he is surrendered to the water, in a box. He is then saved by animals, or by lowly people (shepherds), and is suckled by a female animal or by an humble woman. After he has grown up, he finds his distinguished parents, in a highly versatile fashion. He takes his revenge on his father, on the one hand, and is acknowledged, on the other. Finally he achieves rank and honors.

Rank interprets this pattern as a collective expression of the Freudian "family romance". He argues that the saga externalizes a child's repressed Oedipus complex, especially the desire to supplant the father and claim exclusive access to the mother. The narrative sequence disguises those impulses by casting the father as the aggressor, while motifs such as the watery exposure symbolically reenact birth. ^[1]

Raglan

Part II presents an excerpt from Lord Raglan's 1936 study The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama. Raglan, an amateur anthropologist aligned with the myth-ritual school, argues that hero narratives function as ritual scripts rather than distorted history. ^[5]

Raglan develops a 22-point scale of typical incidents in a hero's life. ^[1] His pattern covers the hero's entire biography:

1. The hero's mother is a royal virgin.
2. His father is a king.
3. His parents are often closely related.
4. The circumstances of his conception are unusual.
5. He is reputed to be the son of a god.
6. At birth his father or maternal grandfather tries to kill him.
7. He is spirited away.
8. Foster parents in a distant country raise him.
9. His childhood remains unrecorded.
10. When he reaches manhood he travels to his future kingdom.
11. He defeats the reigning king or a monstrous adversary such as a giant, dragon, or wild beast.
12. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor.
13. He becomes king.
14. He reigns uneventfully for a time.
15. He enacts laws.
16. He later loses favor with the gods or his subjects.
17. He is expelled from the throne and the city.
18. He dies under mysterious circumstances.
19. The death often occurs at the top of a hill.
20. Any children he has do not succeed him.
21. His body is not buried.
22. He nevertheless receives one or more holy sepulchers.

Applying this checklist to figures such as Oedipus, Theseus, Romulus, and Moses, Raglan records substantial overlap. He concludes that the conventional hero embodies a standardized ritual pattern in which a divine king is enthroned, reigns, and is sacrificed for communal prosperity. ^[5]

Dundes

Part III reproduces Alan Dundes's 1976 essay "The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus". Dundes applies the comparative framework developed by his predecessors to the biblical narrative of Jesus, relying on Raglan's 22-point scale to argue that the Gospels present Jesus within the Indo-European hero pattern. ^[1] He assigns the story a score of seventeen or more points on the scale, ranking Jesus higher than many classical heroes in Raglan's sample. ^[4]

Dundes maintains that adherence to a folkloric template is independent of a figure's historicity. He argues that communities shape the biographies of significant individuals, whether historical or legendary, to match established cultural narratives. Thus identifying the life of Jesus as an instance of the hero pattern does not prove or disprove his existence. It shows that believers remembered his life in forms that resonated with lasting narrative structures. ^[2]

Reception

Reviewers in religious studies, classics, and folklore journals praised In Quest of the Hero as a valuable resource for myth scholarship. They noted that collecting three influential yet hard-to-find texts made the development of hero pattern theory accessible to students and researchers. ^[4]

Richard S. Caldwell of Classical World called the book "a magnificent idea" and an "extremely useful collection for courses in mythology" and praised Segal's introduction as "brilliant and incisive" and "worth the price of the book by itself". ^[3] William G. Doty, writing in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, emphasized the anthology's value for showing how different theoretical frameworks engage the same material and described Segal's introduction as a "masterful short review" of the field. ^[4] Jonathan Z. Smith recommended the volume in The Journal of Religion as a teaching tool that traces "the full trajectory of the 'hero pattern' as a topic in twentieth-century scholarship". ^[2]

H. R. Ellis Davidson wrote in Folklore that although later research has revised aspects of Rank and Raglan, their essays remain essential for understanding hero studies. She called Dundes's contribution "stimulating" and credited Segal with presenting the debates "with admirable clarity". ^[5] Burton L. Mack in Religious Studies Review likewise praised the collection as a convenient set of classic essays and described Segal's introduction as a helpful road map to competing theories. ^[6]

References

1. Segal, Robert A.; Rank, Otto; Raglan, FitzRoy Richard Somerset; Dundes, Alan (1990). In Quest of the Hero. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN   0-691-02062-0.
2. Smith, Jonathan Z. (Jan 1992). "Review of In Quest of the Hero". The Journal of Religion. 72 (1): 153. doi:10.1086/488880.
3. Caldwell, Richard S. (1991). "Review of In Quest of the Hero". The Classical World. 85 (2): 132. doi:10.2307/4395293.
4. Doty, William G. (Summer 1992). "Review of In Quest of the Hero". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 60 (2): 360–363. doi:10.1093/jaarel/LX.2.360.
5. Davidson, H. R. Ellis (1991). "Review of In Quest of the Hero". Folklore. 102 (1): 122–123.
6. Mack, Burton L. (Jul 1991). "Review of In Quest of the Hero". Religious Studies Review. 17 (3): 266. doi:10.1111/j.1748-0922.1991.tb00171.x.