The term 'Metaphor As Myth' names one of the most consequential theoretical claims in the depth-psychology and mythology corpus: that myth does not merely employ metaphor as a rhetorical device but that metaphor is the constitutive mode of mythic consciousness itself — its native tongue, not its ornament. Joseph Campbell gives the term its canonical formulation in 'The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion' (1986) and elaborates it across 'Thou Art That' (2001), where he insists that religious symbols are metaphors misread as facts and that recovering their force requires restoring their metaphorical transparency to transcendence. Hillman approaches the same territory from the archetypal side: mythical consciousness, he argues in 'Re-Visioning Psychology', renders the prefix 'as-if' superfluous because mythic enactment is already metaphorical existence — concrete life experienced as figure, not fact. Robert Romanyshyn extends this into epistemology proper, distinguishing the 'metaphor of myth' (psychology's established conversance) from the deeper 'myth of metaphor' — a shift in consciousness toward understanding all psychological language as fundamentally mythic in structure. Derrida's analyses in 'Margins of Philosophy' furnish the deconstructive counter-pressure, showing how the metaphor-concept relation is never innocent and how philosophical language is itself a sediment of dead metaphors. Otto Rank's chapter 'Myth and Metaphor' in 'Art and Artist' traces the macrocosmization that underlies all metaphoric process. These converging and contending trajectories make 'Metaphor As Myth' a site of genuine theoretical tension between hermeneutic recovery, archetypal imaginal practice, and post-structuralist critique.
THE INNER REACHES OF OUTER SPACE ____ METAPHOR AS MYTH AND AS RELIGION
This is Campbell's titular and programmatic statement that metaphor and myth are co-extensive categories, giving the term 'Metaphor As Myth' its canonical bibliographic locus in the depth-psychology corpus.
, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion, 1986thesis
metaphor(s), 34; of Bible, 4; as facts, 48; misunderstood, 48; and mystery, 8-9; as native tongue of myth, 6-8; origin of word, xiv; religious mystery, myth, and, 48
Campbell's index entry crystallizes his central argument: metaphor is the 'native tongue of myth,' and its misreading as literal fact is the source of religious and cultural confusion.
, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, 2001thesis
Psychology has long been conversant with the metaphor of myth. When psychology goes beyond itself towards a science of soul, it will have to become conversant with the myth of metaphor.
Romanyshyn reverses the conventional priority, arguing that depth psychology must move from treating myth as a reservoir of metaphors to recognizing metaphor itself as a mythic — and hence constitutive — modality of psychological consciousness.
, The Wounded Researcher: Research with Soul in Mind, 2007thesis
'As-if' is a necessary philosophical step for recognizing the metaphorical character of all certainties in what we see, say, and believe. But if we begin in mythical consciousness we do not need the prefix.
Hillman argues that genuine mythical consciousness renders metaphor and lived reality co-extensive, making the Vaihingerian 'as-if' qualification redundant — concrete existence is already mythic enactment.
, Re-Visioning Psychology, 1975thesis
The material on metaphor as the native tongue of myth is drawn from four lectures presented at the University of Beloit, Beloit, Wisconsin, in January 1969.
This editorial note documents the genealogy of Campbell's 'metaphor as native tongue of myth' thesis, anchoring it in a specific and dateable series of lectures that preceded the published formulation.
, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, 2001thesis
'Myth,' says Hermann Broch, 'is the archetype of every phenomenal cognition of which the human mind is capable. Archetype of all human cognition, archetype of science, archetype of art — myth is consequently the archetype of philosophy too.'
Hillman, citing Broch, elevates myth to the status of meta-cognitive archetype, grounding the claim that metaphor-as-myth operates at a level prior to all other epistemic forms including science and philosophy.
, Re-Visioning Psychology, 1975supporting
The End of the World is, therefore, metaphoric of our spiritual beginning rather than our harsh and fiery ending.
Campbell demonstrates in practice his core thesis: that mythic narratives function as metaphors pointing inward toward transformation, not outward toward cosmological events — literalization is the error his hermeneutic corrects.
, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, 2001supporting
For Campbell, our central confusion lies between literal and metaphorical interpretations of religious stories.
The editorial introduction to 'Thou Art That' identifies the literal-versus-metaphorical distinction as the axial problem Campbell's entire mythographic project addresses.
, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, 2001supporting
Metaphor, 5, 33, 43, 56, 68 function of, 52, 122 interpretation of, 48-49 language of, 137 as myth, 48, 121 poetic, 123 as religion, 121
Noel's concordance to Campbellian terms maps 'metaphor as myth' and 'metaphor as religion' as coordinate functions in Campbell's system, confirming the term's structural centrality to his mythology of mythology.
, Paths to the Power of Myth: Joseph Campbell and the Study of Religion, 1990supporting
'mythology is psychology misread as cosmology, history and biography.'
Noel cites Campbell's aphorism to show that misreading myth as literal cosmology — rather than as psychological metaphor — is the fundamental hermeneutic error the 'Metaphor As Myth' thesis exists to correct.
, Paths to the Power of Myth: Joseph Campbell and the Study of Religion, 1990supporting
Myth and Metaphor © world, which is neither created by the gods nor even really governed by them, it is human passions which control events on earth.
Rank's chapter 'Myth and Metaphor' situates the mythic imagination in human passion and action rather than divine governance, laying a psychogenetic foundation for understanding myth as humanly projected metaphor.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
This process of creative heightening which underlies all metaphor we find preserved in the old anatomical terms.
Rank traces the macrocosmizing logic underlying all metaphor — the transference of bodily terms to cosmic registers — as the same creative process that generates mythic cosmologies.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
these premises, having a wholly metaphorical existence, cannot be mistaken for metaphysical existence.
Hillman's characterization of archetypal premises as possessing 'wholly metaphorical existence' distinguishes the imaginal register from the metaphysical, directly supporting the claim that myth operates in the mode of metaphor rather than ontological assertion.
, Re-Visioning Psychology, 1975supporting
The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion (1986)
The bibliographic citation of Campbell's key text situates 'Metaphor as Myth and as Religion' within the full arc of his publishing career, indicating its status as a culminating theoretical statement.
, Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume IV, 1968supporting
The equating of the savage with the poetic in Mailer's statement — and each as equally representative of a needed metaphoric vision — is already an intriguing one.
Noel frames the 'metaphoric vision' attributed to archaic and poetic consciousness as the cultural-historical problem that Campbell's 'Metaphor As Myth' thesis is designed to recover for modern space-age humanity.
, Paths to the Power of Myth: Joseph Campbell and the Study of Religion, 1990supporting
P. Wheelwright, Metaphor and Reality (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1962), 71. On metaphor as tenor and vehicle, see I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric.
Hillman's citations of Wheelwright and Richards signal the philosophical-rhetorical substrate informing archetypal psychology's technical engagement with metaphor, showing its debt to mid-century philosophy of language.
, Alchemical Psychology, 2010aside
in order to figure the metaphoricity of the concept, the metaphor of the metaphor, the metaphoric productivity itself
Derrida's analysis of Nietzsche's meta-metaphor of the beehive poses the deconstructive challenge to any naive use of 'metaphor as myth': the concept of metaphor is itself irreducibly metaphoric, complicating claims to transparent mythic meaning.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982aside
'the terrible historical need of our unsatisfied modern culture … the consuming desire for knowledge — what does all this point to, if not the loss of myth, the loss of the mythic home.'
Hillman deploys Nietzsche's lament over the loss of mythic home to contextualize why recovering metaphor-as-myth remains an urgent cultural and psychological task rather than a merely academic one.
, Mythic Figures, 2007aside