Iron John (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Robert Bly
- First Published: 1990
- Type of Work: Essays
- Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Mythology or myths, Spiritual life or spirituality, Fathers, Folklore, Men
In what is arguably his most culturally significant publication, Bly reprints a pre-Christian northern European folktale, “Iron John,” and addresses each and all of the major plot elements in the tale in chronological order over the course of eight chaptered essays, which is followed by an epilogue and then the entire text of the folktale. Bly uses the folktale to show how the fully developed, fully realized adult man is a combination of personae which can be identified at successive points in the tale.
Bly posits that the self-actualized adult male is in fact an entire...
[The entire page is 911 words long]
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