Library staff recommendation: Iron John

The poet Robert Bly explicates the fairy tale Iron John, and uses it to analyze the state of male role models and manhood in contemporary society today. According to Bly, the loss of rites-of-passage among adolescents, and the disconnect between generations, has led to a crisis within contemporary manhood. Seen through the prism of the fairy tale, Bly attempts to create a new path for masculinity, one better attuned to the shifting roles among men, women, and cultures within society today. Written in 1990, Bly’s observations are still applicable, and would seem to have an even greater urgency today.