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In The Olive-Tree Bed and Other Quests, the fourth in the series of Robson Lectures published by the University of Toronto Press, Father Lee studies the quest myth as it occurs in Homer's Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, Wagner's Parsifal and Goethe's Faust. Though the four works represent four different genres - oral epic, written epic, music drama, and poetic drama - each deals with the finding of an elusive goal attainable only by the hero called to find it. The questing for the olive-tree bed, the Golden Bough, the Holy Grail, and the Eternal Feminine is, at the deepest level, the hero's search to find the meaning in his life. Though Father Lee's lectures address critical problems in the four works, and draw to some extent on Jungian insights, this volume is also a personal memoir written in the belletristic style for which its author has become known. Father Lee wears his learning lightly, and his writing changes from chapter to chapter as it reflects, in turn, the clarity and naïve sense of wonder in Homer, the darkness and ambivalence in Virgil, the intuitive mysticism of Wagner, and the riotously imaginative exuberance of Goethe. Each of the four quests comes eventually to be seen as every person's search to discover himself - for the journey of the hero is the myth each of us is called to live.

Quests in literature. --- Quests in literature --- Heroes in literature. --- Quests (Expeditions) in literature.

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First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

English fiction --- Quests (Expeditions) in literature. --- American fiction --- Imperialism in literature. --- Colonies in literature. --- Memory in literature. --- Memory as a theme in literature --- Quests in literature --- History and criticism.

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"Giamo's main purpose is to chronicle and clarify Kerouac's various spiritual quests through close examinations of the novels. Kerouac began his quest with On the Road, which also is Giamo's real starting point. To establish early themes, spiritual struggles, and stylistic shifts, however, Giamo begins with the first novel, The Town and the City, and ends with Big Sur, the final turning point in Kernouac's quest." "Kerouac was primarily a religious writer bent on testing and celebrating the profane depths and transcendent heights of experience and reporting both truly. Baptized and buried a Catholic, he was also heavily influenced by Buddhism, especially from 1954 until 1957 when he integrated traditional Eastern belief into several novels. Catholicism remained an essential force in his writing, but his study of Buddhism was serious and not solely in the service of his literary art."--Jacket.

Autobiographical fiction, American --- Quests (Expeditions) in literature --- Beats (Persons) in literature --- Beat fiction, American --- Spiritual life in literature --- American Literature --- English --- Languages & Literatures --- Quests in literature --- American Beat fiction --- American fiction --- Beat generation in literature --- History and criticism --- History and criticism. --- Kerouac, Jack, --- Kerouac, Jack --- Kerouac, John --- Kérouac, Jean Louis Lebris de --- Chia-lo-kʻo, Chieh-kʻo --- Keruak, Dz︠h︡ek --- Ḳeruʼaḳ, G'eḳ --- קרואק, ג׳ק, --- Criticism and interpretation. --- Criticism and interpretation --- Autobiographical fiction [American ] --- Quests (Expeditions) in literature. --- Beats (Persons) in literature. --- Spiritual life in literature.