The Archetypes of Literature (1951): Northrop Frye
Dilip Barad
1.
In what way Archetypal criticism
discovers basic cultural pattern?
2.
“Frye
proposed that the totality of literary woks constitute a “self-contained
literary universe” “. Discuss.
3.
“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.” Elucidate with N.Frye’s
views in his essay Archetype of Literature
4.
.
Answer:
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 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, 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 and
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 myths, 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 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 the 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 14th cen., and S.T.Coleridge’sRime 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.
What is Northrop Frye’s contribution to
the archetypal 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. It was not until the work of the Canadian literary critic Northrop
Frye that archetypal criticism was theorized in purely literary terms. The
major work of Frye’s to deal with archetypes is Anatomy of Criticism but his essay The
Archetypes of Literature is a precursor to the book. 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[1].
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 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 unconscious on the grounds of feeling it was unnecessary:
since the unconscious is unknowable it cannot be studied. How archetypes came
to be was also of no concern to Frye; rather, the function and effect of
archetypes is his interest.
Frye 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 as
to assimilate the alien and indifferent world of nature into archetypal forms
that serve to satisfy enduring human desires and needs. In this literary
universe, four radical mythoi (i.e. plot forms, or organizing structural
principles), 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 works of
literature also play variations upon a number of more limited archetypes – that
is, conventional patterns and types that literature shares with social rituals
as well a with theology, history, law, and , in fact, all “discursive verbal
structures.” Viewed arhetypally, Frye asserted, literature turns out to play an
essential role in refashioning the impersonal material universe into an
alternative verbal universe that is intelligible and viable, because it is
adapted to universal human needs and concerns.
 |
| Mythos Grid |
There are two basic categories in Frye’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.
·
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 metonymized[2]
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.
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.
·
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.
·
Animals in the comedic genres are docile
and pastoral (e.g. sheep), while animals are predatory and hunters in the
tragic (e.g. wolves).
·
For the realm of vegetation, the comedic
is, again, pastoral but also represented by gardens, parks, roses and lotuses.
As for the tragic, vegetation is of a wild forest, or as being barren.
·
Cities, temples, or precious stones represent
the comedic mineral realm. The tragic mineral realm is noted for being a
desert, ruins, or “of
sinister geometrical images” (Frye 1456).
 |
| Stonehenge |
·
Lastly, the water realm is represented by
rivers in the comedic. With the tragic, the seas, and especially floods, signify the
water sphere.
Frye admits that his schema in “The
Archetypes of Literature” is simplistic, but makes room for exceptions by
noting that there are neutral archetypes. The example he cites are islands such
as Circe[3]’s
or Prospero’s
which cannot be categorized under the tragic or comedic.
How do
contemporary critics view Frye’s archetypal criticism?
Arguments about
the Contemporary Dilemma with Frye’s Archetypal Literary Criticism
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 play 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 fact,
arguments about generic blends such as tragicomedy go back to the Renaissance, and Frye
always conceived of genres as fluid. Frye thought literary forms were part of a
great circle and were capable of shading into other generic forms. (Diagram of
his wheel in Anatomy
of Criticism[4])
 |
| Grave Digger's Scene: 'Hamlet' |
What are the examples of archetypes in literature?
Archetypes fall into two major categories: characters,
situations/symbols. It is easiest to understand them with the help of examples.
Listed below are some of the most common archetypes in each category.
Characters[i]:
- The hero - The courageous figure, the one who's always running
in and saving the day. Example: Dartagnon from Alexandre Dumas's "The
Three Musketeers". (Hamlet, Macbeth, Tom Jones, Moll, … )
- The outcast - The outcast is just that. He or she has been cast
out of society or has left it on a voluntary basis. The outcast figure can
oftentimes also be considered as a Christ figure. Example: Simon from
William Golding's "The Lord of the Flies". ( Pandavs, Ram-Sita-laxman,
Sugreve, Duke, Orlando, Rosalind in As You Like It, tramps in Godot,
…)
- The scapegoat - The scapegoat figure is the one who gets blamed for
everything, regardless of whether he or she is actually at fault. Example:
Snowball from George Orwell's "Animal Farm". [Tom Jones, Darcy
in P&P (breaking of Lizzy’s sis’s relationship, elopement),
Technology in BNW, Tess for death of Prince, giving birth to
Sorrow, …]
- The star-crossed lovers - This is the young couple joined by love but
unexpectedly parted by fate. Example: Romeo and Juliet from William
Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". [ Tess and Angel, Heer –
Ranjha, Sheeri – Farhad, ….]
- The shrew - This is that nagging, bothersome wife always
battering her husband with verbal abuse. Example: Zeena from Edith
Wharton's "Ethan Frome". [Katherina in Taming of Shrew,
Paul’s mother in S&L, Lizzy’s mother in P&P.
6.
Femme Fatale[5]:
A female character type who brings upon catastrophic and disastrous events. Eve
from the story of Genesis
or Pandora
from Greek mythology are two such figures. Seta, Draupadi or Surparnakha
- The
Journey: A narrative archetype where the protagonist must overcome a
series of obstacles before reaching his or her goal. The quintessential
journey archetype in Western culture is arguably Homer’s Odyssey
Situations/symbols:
- Archetypal
symbols vary 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.
- The task - A situation in which a character, or group of
characters, is driven to complete some duty of monstrous proportion.
Example: Frodo's task to keep the ring safe in J. R. R. Tolkein's
"The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. AthurianLegends, , bring Helen
back to Troy, Kurukshetra’s battle for Arjun, Savitri…)
- The quest - Here, the character(s) are searching for something,
whether consciously or unconsciously. Their actions, thoughts, and
feelings center around the goal of completing this quest. Example:
Christian's quest for salvation in John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's
Progress". (Search for Holy Grail, Search for Sita, Nal-Damaanti,
Savitri for Satyakam’s life, Shakuntala in Kalidas, Don Quixote,
Jude, …)
- The loss of innocence - This is, as the name implies, a loss of innocence
through sexual experience, violence, or any other means. Example: Val's
loss of innocence after settling down at the mercantile store in Tennessee
William's "Orpheus Descending". [Moll, Tess, Tom, Jude, …]
- 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.
Wate[ii]r:
birth-death-resurrection; creation; purification and redemption; fertility and
growth.
Sea/ocean:
the mother of all life; spiritual mystery; death and/or rebirth; timelessness
and eternity.
- Rivers: death and
rebirth (baptism); the flowing of time into eternity; transitional phases
of the life cycle. . . . Example:
Edna learns to swim in Kate Chopin's "The Awakening". {Water
movie and novel by BapsiSidhwa, Death by Water, polluted River in Waste
Land…]
Sun (fire and sky are closely related): creative
energy; thinking, enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual vision.
Rising
sun: birth, creation, enlightenment.
Setting sun: death.
Colors:
Red: blood, sacrifice, passion; disorder.
Green: growth, hope, fertility.
Blue: highly positive; secure; tranquil;
spiritual purity.
Black: darkness, chaos, mystery, the unknown,
death, wisdom, evil, melancholy.
White: light, purity, innocence, timelessness;
[negative: death, terror, supernatural]
Yellow: enlightenment, wisdom.
Serpent (snake, worm):
symbol of energy and pure force (libido); evil, corruption, sensuality,
destruction.
Numbers:
3 - light, spiritual awareness, unity (the Holy
Trinity); male principle.
4 - associated with the circle, life cycle,
four seasons; earth, nature, elements.
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.
Wise old Man: savior,
redeemer, guru, representing knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, intuition,
and morality.
Garden: paradise,
innocence, unspoiled beauty.
Tree: denotes life of the
cosmos; growth; proliferation; symbol of immortality; phallic symbol.
Desert: spiritual aridity;
death; hopelessness.
Creation: All cultures
believe the Cosmos was brought into existence by some Supernatural Being (or
Beings).
Seasons:
Spring - rebirth; genre/comedy.
Summer - life; genre/romance.
Fall - death/dying; genre/tragedy.
Winter - without life/death; genre/irony.
(If winter has come, can spring be far behind?)
(April is the cruelest month…)
The great fish: divine
creation/life. (Matsyavatar)
Freud's symbolism/archetypes:
Concave images (ponds, flowers, cups, vases, hollows):
female or womb symbols.
Phallic symbols (towers, mountain peaks, snakes, knives,
swords, etc.) male symbols.
Dancing, riding, or flying: symbols of sexual pleasure.
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;
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.
References
- Abrams, M.
H.
"Archetypal Criticism." A Glossary of Literary Terms.
Fort Worth: HBJ, 1993. 223 - 225
- Bates, Roland. Northrop Frye.
Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971.
- Frye, Northrop. "The
Archetypes of Literature." The Norton Anthology: Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 1445 - 1457
- Knapp, Bettina L.
"Introduction." A Jungian Approach to Literature.
Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. ix
- xvi
- Leitch, Vincent B. "Northrop
Frye." The Norton Anthology: Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B.
Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 1442 - 1445
- -- "Carl Gustav Jung." The
Norton Anthology: Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New
York: Norton, 2001. 987 - 990
- Segal, Robert A.
"Introduction." Jung on Mythology. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1998. 3 - 48
- Walker, Steven F. Jung and the
Jungians on Myth. New York: Garland Publishing, 1995. 3 - 15
Retrieved from
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetypal_literary_criticism"
Resources
Books
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy
of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957. (Available
in the UHS Library)
The Northrop
Frye International Literary Festival: http://www.northropfrye.com/home.htm
Northrop Frye,
Bedford/St. Martin's: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/critical/frye.htm
Northrop Frye,
The Literary Encyclopedia:http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1648
Northrop Frye
Collection, Victoria University Library:http://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/special/fryeintro.htm
Anatomy of
Criticism, Book Review:http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/aoc.htm
Wikipedia
Links
Northrop Frye: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Frye
Anatomy of
Criticism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_Criticism
General
Interest
Northrop Frye, Simulation, and
the Creation of a "Human World":
http://www.transparencynow.com/introfry2.htm
[1]Semiotics, semiotic
studies, or semiology is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or
signification and communication, signs and symbols, both
individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed
and understood.Syntactics
is the branch of semiotics that deals with the formal properties of signs and
symbols
[2] In rhetoric, metonymy
(IPA: /mɨˈtɒnɨmi/) is the use of
a word for a concept with which the original concept behind this word is
associated. Metonymy may be instructively contrasted with metaphor. Both
figures involve the substitution of one term for another. While in metaphor,
this substitution is based on similarity, in metonymy the substitution is based
on contiguity. Metaphor
- The ship plowed through the sea. Metonymy - The sails crossed the ocean.
In cognitive
linguistics,
metonymy refers to the use of a single characteristic to identify a more
complex entity and is one of the basic characteristics of cognition. It is common
for people to take one well-understood or easy-to-perceive aspect of something
and use that aspect to stand either for the thing as a whole or for some other
aspect or part of it. A few commonly used examples of metonymy are: Sweat =
perspiration = hard work(metonymical); lend
me thy ear.
[3] In Greek mythology,
Circe or Kírkē (Greek Κίρκη, falcon), was a Queen goddess (or
sometimesnymph or sorceress)
living on the island of Aeaea. Circe transformed
her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals through the use of magical
potions. She was renowned for her knowledge of drugs and herbs.
[4]Frye's four essays between a "Polemical
Introduction" and a "Tentative Conclusion." The four essays are
titled "Historical Criticism: A Theory of Modes," "Ethical
Criticism: a Theory of Symbols," "Archetypal
Criticism: A Theory of myths," and "Rhetorical Criticism: A Theory of Genres."
Tasks:
- Give your responses to these questions in the minimum possible words in the COMMENT below this blog-post:
- What is Archetypal Criticism? What does the archetypal critic do?
- What is Frye trying prove by giving an analogy of ' Physics to Nature' and 'Criticism to Literature'?
- Share your views of Criticism as an organised body of knowledge. Mention relation of literature with history and philosophy.
- Briefly explain inductive method with illustration of Shakespeare's Hamlet's Grave Digger's scene.
- Briefly explain deductive method with reference to an analogy to Music, Painting, rhythm and pattern. Give examples of the outcome of deductive method.
- Refer to the Indian seasonal grid (below). If you can, please read small Gujarati or Hindi or English poem from the archetypal approach and apply Indian seasonal grid in the interpretation.
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| Indian Seasons |
