"Iron John" by Robert Bly

Robert Bly is primarily a poet, if that sentence makes any sense, as who's a professional poet anymore? Thus, his work to resurrect ancient fairy tales about male initiation and man's role in life.  Because of Bly's poetic inclination the movement he jumpstarted in the early 90s has been called Men's Mythopoetic movement.  It was similar to the Men Groups that were formed around that time as a reaction to extreme feminism which seemed to wand a society without men, or only with castrate, feminine men, much to their own detrement born out of ignorance and hate. 

Bly used the Grimm Brothers collected tale about EisenHans or better known in English as Iron John, to get insight into the proper way of initiating men into society and adulthood while at the same time giving meaning to their lives and determining their place in society.  Bly points out that each element in the story is not accidental or random, but it is clearly meant to convey meaning and instruction, something like a mathematical formula where each element is indispensable for the correctness of the whole. 

Fairy tales have been used for centuries to glean wisdom from the past, as our ancestors, largely illiterate, but no less intelligent, preserved the main principles of organizing the life of men and women in stories.  Freud and Jung both have looked into fairy tales, with differing conclusions.  Bly's move adds poetry and mysticism to the Men's movement, which grows and falters in turns, but which is a clear sign of the realization that feminine men will not do for fulfilling the society's male roles.