This blog is part of Assignment Submission.
Name : Khushi R. Rathod
Batch : 2023-25
Roll No : 16
Enrollment Number : 5108230039
Semester : 2
E- mail : khushirathod1863@gmail.com
Assignment Details
Paper No : 109
Paper Code :22402
Paper Name : Literary Theory & Criticism and Indian Aesthetics
Topic : Northrop Frye's Archetypal Criticism
Submitted to : Smt.S.B.Gardi, Department of English,MKBU
Que : Northrop Frye's Archetypal Criticism
Ans.
Table of Contents :-
Introduction :
Northrop Frye
Archetypes And Archetypal Criticism
Jungian Archetypes
Summary of the Essay
The Phases OF Myth
The Quest Myth
The Comic Vision And Tragic Vision
Methodology
Strengths & Weaknesses of Archetypal Criticism
Conclusion
Reference
Introduction :-
Archetypes are like deep-seated patterns or symbols that appear repeatedly in literature and culture. They're the fundamental building blocks of stories, characters, and motifs that evoke strong feelings and resonate universally across different societies. These archetypes, according to Carl Jung, stem from our collective unconscious, a shared reservoir of memories and experiences inherited from our ancestors.
Northrop Frye :-
Northrop Frye was a Canadian scholar who deeply explored literature and its underlying patterns. He began by studying philosophy and theology before delving into literary criticism. His famous work "Fearful Symmetry" focused on William Blake's symbolic imagery, laying the foundation for his later literary theories.
In "Anatomy of Criticism," he challenged the prevailing New Criticism by looking beyond individual texts to examine broader literary patterns and genres. Instead of just analyzing the language of a single work, he emphasized the recurring themes and structures that shape all literature.
Throughout his career, Frye explored various literary forms and authors, from T.S. Eliot to Shakespeare. He also examined the Bible's influence on literature in "The Great Code," seeing it as a rich source of symbolism and myth.
Frye's later works continued to explore literary symbolism and classification, aiming to understand literature's deeper meanings and connections to society. Overall, his contributions revolutionized literary criticism by emphasizing the underlying patterns and archetypes that unite all works of literature. (Britannica)
Archetypes And Archetypal Criticism
The word "archetype" comes from Greek words meaning "beginning" and "imprint." It refers to fundamental images or patterns stored in our collective unconscious, which is like a shared mental reservoir of experiences common to humanity. These archetypes are universal symbols, characters, or motifs that evoke deep emotions and are found across cultures.
The idea of archetypes isn't new; Plato talked about similar concepts, calling them "eidos," or mental forms that represent the essence of things rather than their specific details.
Carl Jung, a student of Freud, popularized the term "archetype" and introduced the idea of the "collective unconscious." He believed that certain images and patterns are inherited and shared by all humans, not just learned from personal experiences.
Archetypal critics see literature as reflecting these universal patterns, suggesting that every piece of literature fits into a larger framework of recurring themes and symbols. Archetypes are like blueprints from which stories are built, and they help us understand deeper meanings and connections in literature.
Jungian Archetypes :
Jung described archetypes as fundamental patterns of energy within our collective unconscious, often appearing most clearly in dreams. He identified four main archetypes within the human psyche: Persona, Self, Shadow, and Anima/Animus.
1. Persona: This is like a mask we wear, showing the world how we want to be seen.
2. Self: This represents the unity of our unconscious and conscious minds, often symbolized by a circle or mandala.
3. Shadow: The Shadow is the part of us that contains our primal instincts, desires, and weaknesses, which we may hide or deny.
4. Anima/Animus: Anima is the feminine aspect within men, and Animus is the masculine aspect within women. Together, they represent our true selves, and their union is symbolized as the divine couple or syzygy.
These archetypes help us understand different aspects of ourselves and our experiences, shaping our thoughts, behaviors, and dreams.
Summary of the Essay :
Northrop Frye’s famous essay “The Archetypes of Literature” is divided into three parts. In the first part Frye elucidates what an archetype is. In the second part of the essay he talks about the inductive study of works concerning archetypal criticism and in the third part he talks about deductive analysis.
The summary effectively explains Frye's key ideas like:
- His distinction between meaningful and meaningless criticism
- His advocacy for a more scientific, systematic approach to literary criticism
- His synthesis of structural and historical criticism into archetypal criticism
- His outlined phases/cycles of myth (comedy, romance, tragedy, satire)
- His description of the quest myth as the origin of literary genres
- His categories of archetypal images/symbols across different realms (human, animal, vegetal, mineral, unformed)
- His contrasting of the comic and tragic visions within these archetypal images
The summary also aptly captures Frye's major influences like Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious and ritualistic/mythological sources like the Bible and Frazer's writings.
The Phases OF Myth :
Comedy is aligned with spring because the genre of comedy is characterized by the birth of the hero, revival and resurrection. Also, spring symbolizes the defeat of winter and darkness.
Romance and summer are paired together because summer is the culmination of life in the seasonal calendar, and the romance genre culminates with some sort of triumph, usually a marriage.
Autumn is the dying stage of the seasonal calendar, which parallels the tragedy genre because it is, (above all), known for the “fall” or demise of the protagonist.
Satire is metonymize with winter on the grounds that satire is a “dark” genre. Satire is a disillusioned and mocking form of the three other genres. It is noted for its darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure.
Frye’s analogy of the cycle of mythoi asserts how human lives and their expressions draws influence from the processes of the natural world. Nature is the mother of metaphor and story. Therefore, comedy, romance, satire and tragedy are the four classifications of myth that Frye identifies, and these four myths combined to form the quest of the hero or the quest myth.
The Quest Myth :
Frye's notion of the "quest myth" being the unifying original narrative from which all literary genres emerge. It correctly states that Frye saw religious scriptures and myths as the primary sources to study archetypes and the recurring patterns that manifest across literature.
The summary rightly explains that for Frye, the critic inductively moves from studying the general mythic "truth" of the quest myth to analyzing how that archetypal pattern manifests in particular literary works. It highlights Frye's view that the quest myth, centered around the hero's journey, is "the original starting point of all the genres."
The summary also appropriately brings in Frye's discussion of two major influences on his archetypal theory - Carl Jung's concept of the "collective unconscious" and the distinction between "naive" and "sentimental" cultures drawn from critics like Schiller.
However, the summary could have provided more details on how Frye connected the quest myth specifically to the four mythoi or narrative categories he outlined (comedy, romance, tragedy, satire). It also doesn't delve into Frye's ideas about the cyclical correspondence between the quest and natural/cosmic cycles.
Overall though, the summary captures the essence of Frye's arguments about the quest myth being the primordial archetype that literary genres and conventions emerge from, according to his archetypal theory. It represents this key concept from his essay fairly accurately.
The Comic Vision And Tragic Vision :
The context of a genre determines how a symbol or image is to be interpreted. Frye outlines five different spheres in his schema: human, animal, vegetation, mineral, and water.
In the comic vision of the human world, everything revolves around community and harmony. The hero represents the reader's desires and seeks to fulfill them. The key themes are gatherings, unity, structure, friendship, and love. Marriage or similar forms of connection symbolize the culmination of life's joys in this perspective.
However, in the tragic view, chaos reigns. There's tyranny, lawlessness, and individuals isolated from society. Leaders betray their followers, and there's often a powerful antagonist, like a monstrous figure from a romantic tale. Additionally, there are negative female archetypes like the harlot or the wicked mother. Divine and heroic figures also follow this pattern, reflecting the darker aspects of humanity.
In the animal world, the comic vision of the world is presented as a community of domesticated animals, usually a flock of sheep or lamb and gentle birds like the dove. the archetypes of pastoral images are prevalent. In the tragic vision, the animal world is infested by beastly creatures, birds of prey, wolves, vultures, dragons, serpent and other monsters.
In the vegetable world of comic vision, the images of garden, grove, park, a tree of life, rose or lotus recur. These are the archetypes of Arcadian images like Marvell’s green world, of Shakespeare’s forest comedies. The tragic vision of the world includes images such as a sinister forest like the one in Comus of Milton or the forest at the opening of Dante’s Inferno, wilderness, tree of death.
In the mineral world, the comic vision of life includes images such as a city, or a building or temple or a stone presented as a glowing precious stone. The whole comic series, especially the tree, is conceived as fiery. archetypes of geometrical images such as starlit dome are also present. In the tragic vision of life, the mineral world of myth is seen as rocks, ruins, a geometrical image like the cross.
Lastly, the water realm is represented by rivers in the comedic. With the tragic, the seas, and especially floods, signify the water sphere.
Methodology :
Two types of Method :
Inductive Method :
From Particular to General
Ex. Grave Digger Scene in ‘Hamlet’
Deductive Method :
Music & Painting
Some arts move in time, like Music; others are presented in space, like painting. In both cases the organizing principle is recurrence, which is called rhythm when it is temporal and pattern when it is spatial.
Thus we speak of the rhythm of music and the pattern of painting ; but later, to show off our sophistication , we may begin to speak of the rhythm of painting and the pattern of music.
Strengths of Archetypal Criticism:
It can reveal connections between a work and universal human experiences, motifs, and symbols that recur across myths and stories from different cultures.
It situates literature within the context of human psychology, bridging textual analysis with insights about the human mind and imagination.
It draws from anthropology, psychology, mythological studies to understand the deeper resonances and meanings of literary archetypes.
It offers a way to appreciate the timeless value and appeal of certain literary works that tap into archetypal themes and images. (Brown)
Potential Weaknesses/Critiques:
There is a risk of reductionism or forcing archetypal interpretations onto works where they may not apply or capture the full richness of the text.
The approach can be perceived as vague, impressionistic or overly reliant on mystical/occult thinking compared to empirical analysis.
Identifying archetypal motifs alone is not sufficient - literary craftsmanship and artistry in rendering those motifs is crucial.
Archetypes may oversimplify the complexity of literary works if applied as rigid categories.
In modern literature, archetypes may function as conscious literary devices rather than arising from the collective unconscious. (Brown)
Conclusion :
Northrop Frye's archetypal criticism delves into universal patterns stored in the collective unconscious, offering insights into the fundamental symbols and motifs found across cultures. His framework categorizes archetypes and analyzes the phases of myth, emphasizing the quest myth as the origin of literary genres. While providing valuable understanding, archetypal criticism may risk oversimplification and impose interpretations on texts. Nonetheless, it offers a nuanced perspective on human experience and storytelling's enduring power.
Reference :-
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Northrop Frye". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Mar. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Northrop-Frye. Accessed 26 April 2024.
Brown, Daniel Russell. “A Look at Archetypal Criticism.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 28, no. 4, 1970, pp. 465–72. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/428486. Accessed 26 Apr. 2024.
Gijo, Divya. “(PDF) Archetypal Criticism: A Brief study of the Discipline and the Sempiternal Relevance of its Pioneers.” ResearchGate, Mar-Apr 2021, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350095915_Archetypal_Criticism_A_Brief_study_of_the_Discipline_and_the_Sempiternal_Relevance_of_its_Pioneers. Accessed 26 April 2024.
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