Assighnment: paper-8

Literary Criticism 

 

Topic: Northrop Frye- Archetypal Criticism

Name: Kalani Jalpa H.

Roll No: 13

Semester:2

Batch:2010-11

Submitted: To:  Dr.Dilip Barad

Department of English, Bhavnagar University.

Northrop Frye’s Archetypal Criticism

In literary criticism the term archetype denotes recurrent narratives designs, patterns of action. Character types, themes and images which are identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature, as well as in myths, dreams and even social rituals. Such recurrent items are held to be the result of elemental and universal forms or patterns in the human psyche, whose effective embodiment in a literary work evokes a profound response from the attentive reader, because he or she shares the psychic archetypes expressed by the author. An important antecedent of the literary theory of the archetype was the treatment of myth by a group of comparative anthropologists at Cambridge University, especially James G. Frazer, who’s The Golden Bough (1890-1915), identified elemental patterns of myth and ritual that, claimed, recur in the legends and ceremonials of diverse and far- flung cultures and religious. An even more important antecedent was the depth psychology of Carl G. Jung (1875-1961), who applied the term “archetype” to what he called “primordial images”, the “psychic residue “of repeated patterns of experience in our very ancient ancestors which, he maintained, survive in the “collective unconscious” of the human race and are expressed in myths, religion, dreams, and private fantasies, as well as in works of literature. Archetypal literary criticism was given impetus by Maud Bodkin’s Archetypal patterns in poetry (1934) and flourished especially during the 1950s and 1960s. Apart from him, the other prominent practitioners of various modes of archetypal criticism were G. Wilson Knight, Robert Graves, Philip Wheelwright, Richard Chase Leslie Fiedler, and Joseph Campbell. These critics tended to emphasize the occurrence of mythical patterns in literature, on the assumption that myths are closest to the elemental archetype than artful manipulation of sophisticated writers.

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; this archetype, it was claimed, occur in primitive rituals of the king who is annually sacrificed, in widespread myths of gods who die to be reborn, and in a multitude of diverse texts, including the Bible, Dante’s Divine Comedy in the early 14^th century and S.T Coleridge’s Rime of Ancient Mariner in 1798.

Among the other archetypal themes, images and characters frequently traced in the heavenly ascent, the search, the Paradise/Hades dichotomy, the promethean rebel-hero, the scapegoat, the earth goddess, and the fatal woman.

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. It was not until the work of Frye’s thesis in “The Archetypes of Literature “remains largely unchanged in anatomy of criticism. Frye’s work helped displace New Criticism as the major mode of analyzing literary texts, before giving way to structuralism and semiotics.

Frye’s work breaks from both Frazer and Jung in such a way that it is distinct from its anthropological and psychoanalytical precursors. In his remarkable and influential book Anatomy of Criticism (1957). N. Frye developed the archetypal archetypal approach into a radical and comprehensive revision of traditional grounds both in the theory of literature and the practice of literary criticism.

For Frye, the death-rebirth myth that Frazer sees manifest in agriculture and the harvest is not ritualistic since it is involuntary, and therefore, must be done. As for Jung Frye was uninterested about the collective un-conscious on the grounds of feelings it was un-necessary; since the unconscious is unknowable it cannot be studied. How archetypes is his interest.

F5rye, proposed that the totality of literary works constitute a “self-contained literary universe “which has been created over the ages by the human imagination so world of nature into archetypal forms that serve to satisfy enduring human desires and needs. In this literary universe, four radical mythoi, correspondent to the four seasons in the cycle of the natural world are incorporated in the four major genres of comedy (spring), romance (summer), tragedy (autumn) and satire (winter).

Within the overarching archetypal mythos of each of these genres, individual a number of more limited archetypes- that is, conventional patterns and types that literature shares with social rituals as well as with theology, history, law and, in fact, all “discursive verbal structure archetypally, Frye asserted, literature turns out to play an essential role in refashioning the impersonal material universe into an alternative verbal, because it is adopted to universal human needs and concerns.

There are two basic categories in Fry’s framework, i.e. comedic and tragic. Each category is further subdivided into two categories: comedy and romance for the comedic; tragedy and satire

(Or ironic) for the tragic. Though he is dismissive of Frazer, Frye uses the seasons in his archetypal schema. Each season is aligned with a literary genre: comedy with spring, romance with summer, tragedy with autumn, and satire with winter.

Ø  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.

Ø  Romance and summer is the culminations 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.

Ø  Autumn is the dying stage of the seasonal calendar, which parallels the tragedy genre because it is, known for the “fall “demise of the protagonist.

Ø  Satire is metonymies 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.

Ø  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.

Ø  The comedic human world is representative of wish- fulfillment and being community centered. In contrast, the tragic human world is of isolation, tyranny, and the fallen hero.

Ø  Animals in the comedic genres are docile and pastoral while animals are predatory and hunters in the tragic.

Ø  For the realm of vegetation, the comedic mineral realm. The tragic mineral realm is noted for being desert, ruins or “of sinister geometrical images”.

Ø  Lastly, the water realm is represented by rivers in the comedic. With the tragic, the seas, and especially floods, signify the water sphere.

Fry admits that his schema in “The Archetypes of Literature “is simplistic, but makes room for exceptions by noting that there are islands such as Circe’s or Prospero’s which cannot be categorized under the tragic or comedic.

 It has been argued that Frye’s version of archetypal criticism strictly categorizes works based on their genres, which determines how an archetype is to be interpreted in a text. According to this argument the dilemma Frye’s archetypal criticism faces with more contemporary literature, and that of post-modernism in general, is that genres and categories are no longer distinctly separate and that the very concept of genres has become blurred, thus problematizing Frye’s schema for instance Beckett’s waiting for godot is considered a tragicomedy, a plays with elements of tragedy  and satire, with the implication that interpreting textual elements in the play becomes difficult as the two opposing seasons and conventions that Frye associated with genres are pitted against each other. But in that arguments about generic blends such as tragicomedy go back to the renaissance, and Frye always archived of genres as fluid, Frye thought literary forms were part of a great circle and were capable of shading into other generic forms.

Ø  The example of archetypes in literature:

Archetypes fall into two major categories characters, situations /symbols it is easiest understand then with the help of example listed below are some of the most common archetypes in each category.

Ø  Characters:

Ø  1) The Hero: The courageous figure, the one who’s always running in and saving the day. Example: Dartagnon from Alexander Dumas’s “The Three Musketeers”.

Ø  2) The Outcast: The Outcast is just that, he or she has been cast out of society or has left it on a voluntary basis. (Pandvas, Ram-Sita-Laxman, Sugreve, Duke, Orlando, Rosalind in as you Like It, Tramps in Godot).

Ø  3) The Scapegoat: The Scapegoat figure is the one who gets blamed for everything regardless of whether he or she is actually at fault. (Tom Jones, Darcy Tess for Death of Prince, giving birth to sorrow).

Ø  4) The Star-Crossed lovers: this is the young couple joined by love but unexpectedly parted by fate. Romeo and Juliet, Tess and Angel, Heer-Ranja, Sheeri-Farhad.

Ø  5) The Shrew: This is that nagging, bother-some wife always battering her husband with verbal abuse. Katherina in Taming of Shrew, Paul’s mother in Son’s and lovers.

Ø  6) Female Fatale: A female character type who brings upon catastrophic and disastrous events. Eve from the story of Genesis from Greek mythology is two such figures. Seta Draupadi or Surparnakha.

Ø  7) The Journey: A narrative archetype where the protagonist must overcome a series of obstacles before reaching his or her goal. The quintessential journey Homer’s Odyssey.

Ø  Situations/Symbols: Archetypal symbols very more than archetype narratives or character types, but any symbol with deep roots in a culture’s mythology, such as the forbidden fruit in Genesis or even the poison apple in Snow White, is an example of a symbol that resonates to archetypal critics.

Ø  The Task: A situation in which a character or group of characters, is driven to complete. Some duty of monstrous proportion. (Bring Helen back to Troy. Kurukshetra’s battle for Arjun, Savitri).

Ø  The Quest: The characters are searching for something, whether consciously or unconsciously. Their actions, thoughts, and feelings centre around the goal of completing this quest. (Search for Holy Grail, search for Sita, Nal-Damayanti, Savitri for Satyakam’s life, Shakuntala in Kalidas, Don Quixote, Jude).

Ø  The Loss of Innocence: this is, as the name implies, a loss of innocence through sexual experience, violence, or any other means, (Tess, Tom Jones, Jude, and Molly).

Ø  Water: Water is a symbol of life, cleansing and rebirth. It is a strong life force, and is often depicted as a living, reasoning force.

Ø  Rivers:  Death and rebirth: the following time into eternity, transitional phases of the life cycle. (Water movie and novel by Bapsi Sidhwa, Death by Water, Polluted River in Waste Land).

Ø  Clours:

Ø  Red: Blood, Sacrifice, Passion, Disorder

Ø  Green: Growth, Hope, Fertility

Ø  Blue: Highly Positive, Secure, Tranquil, Spiritual Purity.

Ø  Black: Darkness, Chaos, Mystery, the Unknown Death, Wisdom, Evil, Melancholy.

Ø  White: Light, Purity, Innocence, Timeless

Ø  Yellow: Enlightment, Wisdom.

Ø  Numbers:

Ø  3: Light, Spiritual Awareness, Unity, Male Principle.

Ø  4: Associated with the circle, life cycle, four seasons, earth, nature, elements.

Ø  7: The most potent of all symbolic numbers signifying the union of three and four ,the completion of a cycle, perfect order, perfect number, religious symbol.

Ø  Garden: Paradise, Innocence, Unspoiled beauty.

Ø  Tree: Denotes life of the cosmos, growth, proliferation, symbol of immortality, phallic symbol.

Ø  Desert: Spiritual aridity, death, hopelessness.

Ø  Creation: All Cultures believe the Cosmos was brought into existence by some supernatural being.

Ø  Seasons:

Ø  Spring: Rebirth, Genre/Comedy

Ø  Summer: Life, Genre/Romance

Ø  Fall: Death/Dying/Romance

Ø  Winter: Without life/ Death, Genre/Irony.

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