This is about the first third of the first draft of my essay. The finalization will probably take a little longer. I hope the draft is suitable as a project for this Skillshare course. Thanks again to Sari for the great and informative teaching content!

 

 

The Myth of the Immortal Story

 

Most of you will certainly be familiar with “The NeverEnding Story”. Bastian, Falkor and an inexhaustible fantasy world that draws you right into its spell. As I was thinking about this masterpiece the other day, a thought unfolded in my mind: infinite stories can never end, they go on, and on, and on... until perhaps at some point time itself stops. However, what about stories that end at some point but never really pass? Is there such a thing as an immortal story? Is this just one of my fantasies or is there possibly more to it? I would like to explore this question more deeply with you. On this journey, we will not only look at the oldest stories of the world, but also at the deeper, inner patterns of its inhabitants, the humans.

A story that survives wars, environmental catastrophes, migrations, even space and time itself and continues to exist forever. “Doesn't that sound like the latest fantasy blockbuster from Hollywood?” Indeed, it does. And yet I have often wondered why some stories trigger such deep emotional resonance in us. Why do works like “Star Wars” or “Lord of the Rings” seem so everlasting, so eternal? For me, such stories feel as if there is a deeper truth behind them that we are unable to perceive with our superficial conditioning - at least not consciously.

But where do we start if we want to follow the discovery path of an immortal story? Well, the best place to start is with the stories that come closest to being “immortal”. I am talking about the oldest stories of mankind, with their heroes, gods and legendary creatures - I am talking about myths. However, the mythologies of this world are by no means to be understood as freely invented, rusty fantasy literature. As is so often the case in life, it is worth taking a closer look at these narrative relics of ancient cultures. As Joseph Campbell, probably the most famous myth researcher of the 20th century, once said: “Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical (...)”.

The value of a myth therefore hardly lies in its literal meaning. Rather, it conveys universal truths that cannot be grasped by human language alone.

Are these deeper truths possibly responsible for the fact that stories thousands of years old have survived to the present day? Are these hidden structures what can make a story immortal?

In his myth research, Joseph Campbell showed that a certain narrative structure seems to repeat itself constantly.  We are talking here about the so-called monomyth, also known in modern language as “the hero's journey”. What is particularly interesting is that this structure appears in the most diverse myths in our world, completely independent of continental borders, language or cultural area. It therefore seems to reflect something that has to do with universal human experience.