The term Monomyth (often referred to as the hero's journey) as used within the field of comparative mythology refers to a basic pattern supposedly found in many narratives from around the world. This widely-distributed pattern was described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). An enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions seem to share a fundamental structure and stages, which he summarized in the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces: Campbell and other scholars describe narratives of Buddha, Moses, and Christ in terms of the monomyth, and Campbell argues that other classic myths from many cultures rely upon this basic structure.

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