SOURCE: Grebe, Coralee. “Bashing Joseph Campbell: Is He Now the Hero of a Thousand Spaces?” Mythlore 18, no. 1 (autumn 1991): 50-2.

In the following essay, Grebe addresses Brendan Gill's critique of Campbell, finding many of the charges specious.

Since Brendan Gill's critique of Joseph Campbell appeared in the September 28, 1989 New York Review of Books,¹ it seems that students, critics and even passersby have an opinion on Campbell's character, work and scholarship. Gill's accusations that Campbell was a racist, an anti-semite, a sexist and that his scholarship is pablum, have found both friends and foes. Some have shot Campbell's reputation so full of holes that he could be referred to as the “Hero of a Thousand Spaces.”

Unlike Gill, I never met Campbell, and can offer no opinion on his personal life. I know him only through his writings and public appearances, and dare say that the same is true for...