M.K.
B.U. Smt.S.B.Gardi Department of
English
Assignment
sub: Northrop Frye’s contribution to the Archetypal Criticism
Paper no:
7 - Literary Criticism - Unit: 2
Name:
Drashti V. Dave
Roll
no: 7 Sem.2 Year: 2014
Northrop Frye’s contribution to the
Archetypal Criticism
Simple meaning of the Archetypal
criticism: Archetypal criticism argues that archetypes determine the form and
function of literary work that a text’s meaning is shaped by cultural and
psychological myths.
Archetypal images and story patterns
encourage readers to participate ritualistically in basic beliefs, fears, and
anxieties of their age. These archetypal features not only constitute the
intelligibility of the text but also tap into a level of desires and anxieties
of humankind. Generally archetypal
criticism is a type of criticism that focuses on particular archetypes,
narrative themes, patterns, motifs, characters that recur in a particular
literary work or in literature in general.
Archetypal criticism is said to
increase both the knowledge of a literary piece and the satisfaction in reading
the work. An archetypal critic would suggest that all human experience is
expressed again and again using the same patterns throughout time and space. Archetypes
were first suggested by Carl Jung.
Jungian psychology: Jung was a
psychologist who applied the term archetype to the “primordial images”
that spring from our common human experience. Jung suggested that we all share
a “collective unconscious” in which all of the history of human experience in
contained and to which we all have access through our subconscious minds.
Categories of Archetypes: Archetypes
can be devided into categories –conflicts – characters – situations – themes –
myths – symbols. There are many conflicts in archetypal that are; young vs.
old, strong vs. weak, rich vs. poor, insider vs. outsider, dreams vs. real.
Archetypal characters: Innocent
youth, Bully, Everyman, Devil, Scapegoat, Outcast, Magician, Shrew, Warrior,
Dragon slayer, Hero, Seductress, Wanderer.
Northrop Frye, an archetypal critic,
suggests that literary archetypes can be classified by genre and these genres
seems to the seasons of the years and the life cycle of humanity Frye’s thesis
in ‘The Archetypes of Literature’ remains largely unchanged in Anatomy
to criticism.
Bodkin’s Archetypal patterns in
poetry, the first work on the subject of archetypal literary criticism, applies
Jung’s theories about the collective unconscious, archetypes and primordial images
to literature.
Frye and Jungian Archetypal criticism:- Jung expresses his concept of archetype in a variety of ways, which includes a comparison with Plato’s pure forms.
Archetype literally means ‘First print’ and references to those images
in the human mind that have been present since the down of time.
Jungian concepts in the study of
literature is Maud Bodkin’s Archetypal patterns in poetry (1934) which
demonstrated the author’s interest in the way which ancient symbolism is
replicated in words across a long period of time.
In his (Frye’s) remarkable and
influential book Anatomy of criticism (1957) Northrop Frye developed the
archetypal approach into a radical and comprehensive revision of traditional
grounds both in the Theory of literature and literary criticism. The Death/ re-birth
theme was often said to be the archetype of archetypes, and was held to be
grounded in the cycle of the seasons and the organic cycle of human. Life; it
is related with myths also, Myth is our national identity, it is half-truth, no
one can prove myths and here in archetypal criticism myths is interrelated with
Frye’s view.
Myths of gods who die to be
reborn there are many texts including
Bible, Dante’s Devine comedy in early 14th century and S.T
Coledrige’s The rime of the ancient mariner in 1798 are the examples of
archetype. Among the other archetypal themes, images, and characters frequently
traced in literature were the journey, underground, the heavenly ascent, the
search, the paradise, the promethean, the earth goddess, the fetal woman.
In fetal woman
there are also types of archetypal woman; the good mother, the terrible mother,
the soul mate. According to Frye’s archetypal criticism in any theory or
literary work there are three perspectives; first come writerà than workà than come reader. Frye proposed that the totality of literary
works constitute a “self-contained literary universe” in this literary universe
four radical mythos, i.e. plot forms organization structural principles.
Correspondent to the four seasons in the cycle of the natural world that four
seasons are interrelated with four major genres of comedy, it is related with
seasons.
Season’s à genres
Comedy à spring
Romance à summer
Tragedy à autumn
Satire à winter
There are two basic categories in
Frye’s framework comedies and tragedies. Frye uses the seasons in his
archetypal schema each seasons in aligned with a literary genre: comedy with
spring, romance with summer, tragedy with autumn, satire with winter.
Comedy: comedy focuses on the social
group often setting up an arbitrary law or humorous society and setting out to
reform it. Comedy is aligned with spring because the genre of comedy is
characterized by the birth of the hero revival and resurrection.
Also spring symbolized the defeat of
winter and darkness. The hero’s society, which prevails in the end is really a
reversal of social standards disappeared before beginning of the play.
Irony
and satire: irony and satire parody romance by applying
romantic mythical forms. It presents an image where reality rather than
ideology is dominant. Satire is metonymies with winter on the grounds that
satire is a “dark” genre. Satire is militant irony. Satire must
carefully select content to criticize it is at least implicitly from of the three
other genres.
Romance: romance related with summer both are paired
together because summer is the culmination of life in the seasonal calendar,
and romance genre culminates with some sort of triumph. Frye’s analysis of
romance draws upon the same criteria to define the typical romantic forms:
plot, conflict, development, theme, resolution and mythos.
The essential element in the plot of romance, he
maintains in adventure and thus preventing from becoming a series of endless
repetitions plot, the first two stages assume a central importance for they
relate to the conflict between the hero and his antagonist.
Autumn: major movement toward the death or defeat of
the hero for example: King Lear, in this play we are shown this type of
element. Autumn known as fall, it is also known as Harvest season because this
time peoples harvesting grain and other things. Autumn is the dying stage of
the seasonal calendar, which parallels the tragedy genre it is known for the
fall or demise of the protagonist. That all four seasons are connected with a
literary genre.
In Tony Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eyes”
she decribes all four seasons in her novel, in this novel she connected four
seasons with human life and literary genre. According to her novel autumn,
spring, summer, and winter that four are symbols of human’s life birth,
maturity, fall and death. She beautifully decribes seasons step by step connect
with human’s life. In her novel autumn is also symbolize death, end of the
human life. Here Frye also connect seasons in his criticism.
Here we are shown table of the relationship
between natural cycle, rituals, myth, and literary genre.
|
Seasonal cycle
|
Archetypal
patterns
|
Literary genre
|
|
Dawn/spring/birth
|
The birth
revival resurrection of hero
|
Romance
|
|
|
|
|
|
Summer/zenith/
Marriage or
triumph
|
The triumph,
marriage, age or apotheosis of the hero
|
Comedy, pastoral
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sunset/autumn/
Impending death
|
The fall,
sacrifice, isolation, or death of the hero
|
Tragedy, elegy
|
|
|
|
|
|
Night/winter
dissolution
|
The unheroic nature
of the hero
|
Satire
|
Frye points out that all literary
genres are initially “derived form” and thus variations on the “quest-myth”.
Each genre gestures towards a particular kind of human quest. In other words,
the hero may triumph (comedy), fail or killed (tragedy), reborn (romance), or
be the object of criticism rather than adulation (satire).
Each pattern of actions and each
genre are traceable and correspond to a particular cycle, especially of the
seasons;
Comedy- summer- midday
Tragedy- autumn- dusk
Satire- winter- night
Romance - spring- morning.
The context of a genre determines how
a symbol or image is to be interpreted Frye outlines five different sphere in
his schema; i) human ii) animal iii) vegetation iv) mineral v) water.
The comedic human world is
representative of wish-fulfillment and being community centered, in contrast
the tragic human world is of isolation and the fallen hero.
Animals in the comedic genres are docile and pastoral e.g. sheep, cow while
animals are predatory and hunters in the tragic Frye gave much importance to
the spheres in animals also.
For the realm of vegetation,
the comedic is again pastoral but also represented by gardens, parks, roses,
and lotuses vegetation has no particular life forms, structures or any specific
botanical or geographic characteristics. Vegetation is for a wild forest.
Cities, temples or precious represent
the comedic mineral realm the tragic mineral realm is noted for being a
desert ruins or “of sinister geometrical images” it is a maturely occurring
substance that is solid and stable.
And last the water realm is
represented by rivers in the comedic with the seas and especially floods,
signify the water covers huge part of earth and it is vital for all known forms
of life. For example of the river, The Mississippi River in Huckleberry Finn.
Frye admits that his schema in “archetypal of literature”
is simplistic but makes room for exceptions by nothing that there natural
archetypal, it has been argued that Frye’s archetypal criticism strictly
categories. Works based on genres which determine archetype is to be
interpreted in a text.
Frye’s archetypal criticism focuses
with more contemporary literature. Frye’s schema for instance Beckett’s waiting
for godot is to considered a tragicomedy,
a play with elements of tragedy and satire Frye associated with genres are
pitted against each other.
Conclusion: Archetypal criticism is one of them in four
types of literary criticism. It is related
with the theory of myth he differentiate many thing in archetypal, his one
quote is; “ A snowflake is probably quite unconscious of forming a crystal, but
what it does may be worth study even if we are willing to leave its inner
mental processes alone”—by Northrop Frye, Anatomy of criticism, four essays.
Archetypal is study of myth and myth
is very important tool in literature so ‘every work of literature has its place
within this scheme or myth, every piece of literature adds to the myth.’
