Assignment paper no 7

Name :Gediya Disha Vijaybhai
Class :sem 2
Paper no:7
Subject: The term archetypal criticism denote narrative design,
 patterns of action, character types ,themes and images which are identifiable in work of literature.
Roll no:9
Email
:dishagediya11@gmail.com
Submitted to: Department of
English Maharaja krishna kumar
sinhji Bhavnagar University
Words:2,296

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What is Archetypal Criticism? What are the sources of its origin?

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 f the literary theory of the archetype was the treatment of myth by a group of comparative anthropologists at Cambridge University, especially James G. Frazer, whose 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 ad religions. 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 yths, religion, dreams, and private fantasies, as well as in works of literature. Where is archetypal literary criticism manifested? Who are pioneers of archetypal literary criticism? What types of archetypal themes, images and characters are traced in literature by them?

Archetypal literary criticism was given impetus by Maud Bodkin’s Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (1934) and flourished especially during the 150s 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 closer t the elemental archetype than the artful manipulation of sophisticated writers. The death/re-birth theme was often said to be the archetype of archetypes, and was held t be grounded in the cycle f 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, I 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 14th cen., and S.T.Coleridge’s Rime of Ancient Mariner in 1798.

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

Archetypes can be:
• symbols
• images
• characters
• plot structures

They are revealed in:
• myths
• religions and folklore
• dreams and fantasies
• literature, drama, film
The term and idea come primarily from Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, who also studied myth and religion.
According to Jung, all humans share what he called a “collective unconscious.” This “unconscious” is a collection
of memories and images comprising a racial past of pre-human experiences, the memories from which have been
erased. Archetypal images, then, stimulate or trigger these memories in all of us; that is why they are so powerful
and universal.
Extended definition: Archetypes images, mythological images—structural
components of the collective unconscious. Also a universal thought form (idea) that contains a large element of
emotion. Origin: a permanent deposit in the mind of an experience that has been constantly repeated for many
generations. Archetypes interpenetrate and interfuse with one another. They are experienced via myths, dreams,
visions, rituals, neurotic and psychotic symptoms, and works of art (which contain a great deal of archetypal
material). There are presumed to be numerous archetypes in the collective unconscious. Some of the ones that have
been identified: birth, rebirth, death, power, magic, unity, the hero, the child, God, the demon, the old wise man, the
earth mother, and the animal.
ARCHETYPAL FIGURES
MALE FIGURES
The Young Hero
• is an unusual or prophesied birth
• has remarkable courage
• has princely status
• struggles with pride or impatience
• suffers from boredom with current situation
He undertakes some long journey during which he:
• performs impossible tasks
• battles monsters
• solves unanswerable riddles
• overcomes insurmountable obstacles
• saves a kingdom
• marries a princess
By way of initiation, the hero undergoes a serious of excruciating ordeals in passing from ignorance and immaturity
to social and spiritual adulthood—that is, in achieving maturity and becoming a full-fledged member of his social
group. The initiation most commonly consists of three distinct phases: separation, transformation, and return. Like
the quest, this is a variation of the death/rebirth archetype.


ARCHETYPAL IMAGES
WATER: mystery of creation, birth/death/resurrection, purification/redemption, fertility/growth, unconsciousness
1. Sea: mother of all life, spiritual mystery & infinity, death & rebirth
2. Rivers: death & rebirth (baptism), passage of time, transitional phase of the life cycle
SUN: creative energy, law in nature, consciousness, enlightenment, wisdom
1. Rising sun: birth, creation, enlightenment
2. Setting sun: death, destruction
TREE: life, consistence, growth, proliferation, generative & regenerative processes, inexhaustible life, immortality
COLORS:
1. Red: blood, sacrifice, violence, passion, disorder
2. Green: growth, sensation, hope, fertility
3. Blue: truth, religiosity, security, spiritual purity
4. Black: darkness, chaos, mystery, death, primal wisdom, unconsciousness, evil, melancholy
5. White: light, purity, innocence, timelessness
CIRCLE/SPHERE: wholeness & unity
1. Mandala: spiritual unity & pyschic integration
• juxtaposition of the triangle, square & circle with their numerical equivalents of three, four, & seven
• geometric figure based upon the squaring of a circle around a unifying center
2. Egg/Oval: mystery of life & forces of generation
3. Yin-Yang: Chinese symbol representing union of opposite forces
Yin (feminine, darkness, passivity, unconscious) + Yang (masculine, light, activity, conscious)
4. Ouroboros:ancient symbol of the snake biting its own tail, signifying the eternal cycle of life, primordial
unconsciousness, unity of opposing forces
SERPENT/SNAKE/WORM: evil, corruption, sensuality, destruction, mystery, wisdom, unconscious
NUMBERS:
1. Three: light, spiritual awareness & unity (Holy Trinity)
2. Four: associated with life cycle: four seasons, four elements (earth, air, fire, water)
3. Seven: most potent of all symbolic numbers, signifying perfect order.

Archetypes can be found in nearly all forms of literature, with their motifs being predominantly rooted in folklore. William Shakespeare is known for creating many archetypal characters that hold great social importance in his native land, such as Hamlet, the self-doubting hero and the initiation archetype with the three stages of separation, transformation, and return; Falstaff, the bawdy, rotund comic knight; Romeo and Juliet, the ill-fated ("star-crossed") lovers; Richard II, the hero who dies with honor; and many others. Although Shakespeare based many of his characters on existing archetypes from fables and myths (e.g., Romeo and Juliet on Pyramus and Thisbe), Shakespeare's characters stand out as original by their contrast against a complex, social literary landscape. For instance, in The Tempest, Shakespeare borrowed from a manuscript by William Strachey that detailed an actual shipwreck of the Virginia-bound 17th-century English sailing vessel Sea Venture in 1609 on the islands of Bermuda. Shakespeare also borrowed heavily from a speech by Medea in Ovid's Metamorphoses in writing Prospero's renunciative speech; nevertheless, the unique combination of these elements in the character of Prospero created a new interpretation of the sage magician as that of a carefully plotting hero, quite distinct from the wizard-as-advisor archetype of Merlin or Gandalf. Both of these are likely derived from priesthood authority archetypes, such as Celtic Druids, or perhaps Biblical figures like Abraham, Moses, etc.; or in the case of Gandalf, the Norse figure Odin.
 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. In other
words, all arts may be conceived both temporally and spatially. The
score of a musical composition may be studied all at once; a picture
may be seen as the track of an intricate dance of the eye. Literature
seems to be intermediate between music and painting: its words form
rhythms which approach a musical sequence of sounds at one of its
boundaries, and form patterns which approach the hieroglyphic or
pictorial image at the other. The attempts to get as near to these
boundaries as possible form the main body of what is called experi-
mental writing. We may call the rhythm of literature the narrative,
and the pattern, the simultaneous mental grasp of the verbal structure,
the meaning or significance. We hear or listen to a narrative, but when
we grasp a writer's total pattern we "see" what he means.
The criticism of literature is much more hampered by the repre-
sentational fallacy than even the criticism of painting. That is why
we are apt to think of narrative as a sequential representation of
events in an outside "life," and of meaning as a reflection of some
external "idea." Properly used as critical terms, an author's narrative
is his linear movement; his meaning is the integrity of his completed
form. Similarly an image is not merely a verbal replica of an external
object, but any unit of a verbal structure seen as part of a total pat-
tern or rhythm. Even the letters an author spells his words with form
part of his imagery, though only in special cases (such as alliteration)
would they call for critical notice. Narrative and meaning thus become
respectively, to borrow musical terms, the melodic and harmonic
contexts of the imagery.
1. The dawn, spring and birth phase. Myths of the birth of the
hero, of revival and resurrection, of creation and (because the four
phases are a cycle) of the defeat of the powers of darkness, winter and
death. Subordinate characters: the father and the mother. The arche-
type of romance and of most dithyrambic and rhapsodic poetry.
2. The zenith, summer, and marriage or triumph phase. Myths of
apotheosis, of the sacred marriage, and of entering into Paradise.
Subordinate characters: the companion and the bride. The archetype
of comedy, pastoral and idyll.
3. The sunset, autumn and death phase. Myths of fall, of the dying
god, of violent death and sacrifice and of the isolation of the hero.
Subordinate characters: the traitor and the siren. The archetype of
tragedy and elegy.
4. The darkness, winter and dissolution phase. Myths of the tri-
umph of these powers; myths of floods and the return of chaos, of the
defeat of the hero, and Gotterdammerung myths. Subordinate char-
acters: the ogre and the witch. The archetype of satire (see, for in-
stance, the conclusion of The Dunciad).
1. In the comic vision the human world is a community, or a hero
who represents the wish-fulfilment of the reader. The archetype of
images of symposium, communion, order, friendship and love. In the
tragic vision the human world is a tyranny or anarchy, or an indiv.dual
or isolated man, the leader with his back to his followers, the buLying
giant of romance, the deserted or betrayed hero. Marriage or some
equivalent consummation belongs to the comic vision; the harlot,
witch and other varieties of Jung's "terrible mother" belong tc the
tragic one. All divine, heroic, angelic or other superhuman communi-
ties follow the human pattern.
2. In the comic vision the animal world is a community of domesti-
cated animals, usually a flock of sheep, or a lamb, or one of the geitler
birds, usually a dove. The archetype of pastoral images. In the tragic
vision the animal world is seen in terms of beasts and birds of prey,
wolves, vultures, serpents, dragons and the like.
3. In the comic vision the vegetable world is a garden, grove or park,
or a tree of life, or a rose or lotus. The archetype of Arcadian imiges,
such as that of Marvell's green world or of Shakespeare's forest com-
edies. In the tragic vision it is a sinister forest like the one in Camus
or at the opening of the Inferno or a heath or wilderness, or a tree
of death.
4. In the comic vision the mineral world is a city, or one building
or temple, or one stone, normally a glowing precious stone—in fact the
whole comic series, especially the tree, can be conceived as luminous
or fiery. The archetype of geometrical images: the "starlit dome" be-
longs here. In the tragic vision the mineral world is seen in terms of
deserts, rocks and ruins, or of sinister geometrical images like the cross.
5. In the comic vision the unformed world is a river, traditionall fourfold, which influenced the Renaissance image of the temperate
body with its four humors. In the tragic vision this world usually
becomes the sea, as the narrative myth of dissolution is so often a
flood myth. The combination of the sea and beast images gives us the
leviathan and similar water-monsters.

Conclusion:
So in archetypal criticism Frye use this kind of images and gives example of it. Also explain what is it’s role and it is important in literature.
The important point is not the deficiencies of either procedure,
taken by itself, but the fact that, somewhere and somehow, the two are
clearly going to meet in the middle. And if they do meet, the ground
plan of a systematic and comprehensive development of criticism has
been established.

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