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ARCHETYPAL or MYTH CRITICISM
patterns that transcend time and geography
“Whether we listen with aloof amusement to thedreamlike mumbo jumbo of some red-eyedwitch doctor of the Congo, or read with cultivatedrapture thin translations from the sonnets of themystic Lao-tse; now and again crack the hardnutshell of an argument of Aquinas, or catchsuddenly the shining meaning of a bizarre Eskimofairy tale, it will be always the one, shape-shiftingyet marvelously constant story that we find.” (3)
Joseph CampbellHero With a Thousand Faces
“We all travel, if not in space in time. And since the first strolling teller-of-tales enthralled his audience at the first campfire, we have all loved travelers and travelers’ tales. From Gilgamesh through Odysseus to Bilbo Baggins and Frodo, the epic journey and its hero continue to capture our imagination.”
Rodney StandenThe Changing Face of the Hero
Archetypal critics account for a universality in literature by pointing to recurring patterns and images that appear so deeply embedded in the human mind and culture that they strike a responsive chord in everyone.
Archetypal Criticism
also called Myth Criticismhas roots in anthropological and
psychological studies – Late 19th and early 20th centuries
Sir James Frazer
Cambridge anthropologist examined primitive rituals that indicated
similar patterns of behavior and belief among diverse and widely separated cultures
Frazer...
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (1922) - 12 volumes– explanation of motives behind customs
Italian people of the shores of Lake Nemi rule of kingly succession was to pluck the bough
from a sacred tree and then kill the old king in individual combat
– found this custom was similar or connection of other customs in other peoples
Gilbert Murray
“Hamlet and Orestes” in The Classic Tradition in Poetry– found similarities in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
and the Greek Orestes both are sons of kings killed by younger kinsmen
who then marry the dead king’s wife both are driven by supernatural forces to avenge
their father’s death both end not only by slaying the new king but
also by being responsible for their mother’s death
Murray...
explores connection in the mythic patterns underlying the Greek Orestes saga and the Scandinavian Hamlet story.– behind both is the “world-wide ritual story of
what we may call the Golden-Bough Kings” (Murray 228)
pattern identified by Frazer in which life is renewed through the slaying of an old monarch and succession by a new one.
Carl Jung
psychologist student of Freud The Basic Writing of C.G. Jung first gave prominence to the term archetype
Carl Jung
Collective Unconscious– Shared by all humans– an unconscious “which does not derive from
personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn” (Jung 289)
Carl Jung
Archetypes– contents of the collective unconscious – defined as primordial or “universal images
that have existed since the remotest times” (Jung 288)
– formed during the earliest stages of human development
Carl Jung
Although the theory may seem almost mystic, Jung found no other way to account for the appearance of nearly identical images and patterns in the mind of individuals from wholly different cultures and backgrounds.
Jung...
Jung notes instances which suggest that – water is a symbol of the unconscious and the
action of descending to the water is a symbol of the frightening experience of confronting the depths of one’s unconscious.
dreams of Protestant clergymen legends of African tribes
Jung...
Jung’s account of a patient who in 1906 related visions containing odd symbolic configurations.– later he encountered similar symbols in a
Greek papyrus first deciphered in 1910
Jung
Theory of Individuation– A psychological “growing up”– A process of learning of one’s own
individuality A process of self-recognition which is essential to
becoming a well-balanced person– Neuroses are result of person’s failure to
confront and accept archetypal components of the unconscious
Jung…
Inherited components of the psyche– Principles Archetypes
Animus Anima Shadow
ANIMUS
Physical man Represents physical, brute strength of
man and his animal instincts Can be the “masculine” designation of
the female psyche
ANIMA
The “soul image” The spiritual life-force The “living thing in man, that which lives
of itself and causes life…” “…the archetype of life itself” (Jung, Archetypes 26)
Feminine designation in the male psyche Associated with feelings, passions,
instinctive, unconscious aspect of the psyche
SHADOW
The darker side of our unconscious self Inferior, less pleasing aspect of the personality Represents “the dangerous aspect of the
unrecognized dark half of the personality” (Jung, Two Essays 94)
Needs to be suppressed When projected, this archetype becomes
– The villain– The devil
The theory of archetypes would explain not only such instances as these but also the similarity of myths and rituals found by Frazer, for archetypes are universal patterns from which myths derive.
Joseph Campbell
Monomyth pattern
Maud Bodkin
Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (1934)– among first literary studies in the
Jungian tradition– application of psychological
knowledge to works of literature
Bodkin...
Rime of the Ancient Mariner– rebirth archetype – “night journey under the sea”
going down to the water (into depths of one’s own being) [death] precedes a “rebirth” into greater wisdom and self-knowledge
Jonah - biblical parallel
Northrop Frye
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957) Relies solely upon literature to draw the
archetypal patterns. Calls the theory of collective unconscious
an “unnecessary hypothesis in literary criticism” (Frye 112)
Frye...
Shifts definition of archetype from psychological to the literary
Archetype is “a symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognized as an element of one’s literary experience as a whole” (Frye 365)
Frye...
four types of literature (narrative patterns)– mythos
Unifying myth – analogous to seasons of year– to the story of the birth, death, and rebirth of
the mythic hero
Frye...
Mythos of SUMMER: Romance– analogous to the birth and youthful
adventures of the mythic hero– suggests innocence and triumph– narrative of wish-fulfillment with good
character triumphing over bad Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Robin Hood old-fashioned cowboy movies
Frye...
Mythos of AUTUMN: Tragedy– major movement toward the death or defeat
of the hero Oedipus King Lear
Frye...
Mythos of WINTER: Irony or Satire– hero now absent– society is left without effective leadership or
sense of norms/values Swift’s A Modest Proposal
– social norms are turned upside down for artistic purposes
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Kafka Camus
– sense of hopelessness and bondage
Frye...
Mythos of SPRING: Comedy– rebirth of hero– renewal of life in which those elements of
society who would block the hero are overcome
– hero and heroine take their rightful place – order is restored
Shakespearian comedies
Frye...
Every work of literature has its place within this scheme or myth.
Every piece of literature adds to the myth.
Leslie Fiedler
Begins examination with literary works themselves, rather than with universal patterns
Concerned with defining unique cultural patterns within literature– An End to Innocence: Essays on Culture and Politics
(1955)– Love and Death in the American Novel (1962)
Fiedler...
Uses insights of archetypal criticism to isolate patterns within literature of a given culture or author.
An End to Innocence– sees a single, though controversial,
archetype: “the mutual love of a white man and a colored…the
boy’s homoerotic crush, the love of the black…” (Fiedler 146)
Fiedler...
Argues that where in European novels we would expect to find heterosexual passion, we discover same-sex relationship– James Fenimore Cooper
Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook (Leatherstocking novels – The Last of the Mohicans, The Deerslayer, etc.)
– Herman Melville Ishmael and Queequeg (Moby Dick)
– Mark Twain Huck and Jim (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
Fiedler...
American pattern that may be limited historically
Is a pattern that repeats itself Seems widely shared at a level beneath
consciousness Is for Fiedler, “a symbol, persistent,
obsessive, in short, an archetype” (Fiedler 146)
Bodkin, Maud. Archetypal Patterns in Poetry, London: Oxford UP, 1934.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces.New York: Pantheon, 1949.
Fiedler, Leslie. An End to Innocence: Essays on Cultureand Politics. Boston: Beacon, 1955.
--------. Love and Death in the American Novel. Cleveland:World, 1962.
Bibliography
Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough: A Study inMagic and Religion. 1922. New York: McMillan, 1940.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton:Princeton UP, 1957.
Guerin, Wilfred L. et. al. A Handbook of Critical Approachesto Literature. 4th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
Jung, Carl Gustav. The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung. Ed. Violet Staub De Laszlo. New York: Modern, 1959.
Bibliography
Murray, Gilbert. The Classical Tradition in Poetry. Cambridge:Harvard UP, 1927.
Standen, Rodney. The Changing Face of the Hero. Wheaton, IL:Theosophical Publishing House, 1987.
Bibliography