Archetypal
Criticism
-Northrop Frye
Introduction
Northrop
Fry was born in Canada in
1921 and studied at Toronto University and Merton
College , Oxford University
He
published his first book, ‘Fearful Symmetry: A study of William Blake’ in
1947. The book is a highly original study of the poetry of Blake and it is
considered a classic critical work. Northrop Frye rose to international
prominence with the publication of ‘Anatomy of Criticism’ in 1957 and
it firmly established him as one of the most brilliant, original and
influential of modern critics. Frye died in 1991. On the whole, he wrote about
twenty books on western literature, culture, myth, archetypal theory, religion
and social thought. ‘The Fables of Identity: Studies in poetic Mythology’ is
a critical work published in 1963.
The present essay, ‘Archetypes of
Literature’ is taken from the book. In the essay Frye critically analyses
literature against the backdrop of rituals and myths. He interprets literature
in the light of various rituals and myths. Frye has divided the essay into
three parts. The first part deals with the concept of archetypal criticism. The
second part throws light on the inductive method of analysis of a text. The
third part focuses on the deductive method of analysis. All the methods full
under structural criticism. Another way of thinking about archetypes is to
imagine that in some way it is possible to plot the important aspects of a
story onto a graph.
First,
the question may rise what is Archetypal Criticism? And the answer of this is
in literary criticism the term archetype suggests narrative designs, patterns
of action, character types, themes and images which are known to a wide verity
of works of literature also to myths, dreams and even social rituals. Carl G.
Jung (1975-1961) says it the, “collective unconsciousness” of the human race
and are expressed in myths, religion, freams also in works of literature. Thus
in literature it becomes an archetypal criticism.
It
is generally said that there are many practitioners of various types of
archetypal criticism like G. Wilson Knight, Robert Graves, Philip wheelwright,
Richard chase, Leslie fielder and tossup Campbell
THE CONCEPT OF ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM
Literature
can be interpreted in as many ways as possible, and there are different
approaches to literature and one among them is the archetypal approach. The
term ‘archetype’ means an original idea or pattern of something of which others
are copies. Archetypal approach is the interpretation of a text in it, and
these cultural patterns are based on the myths and rituals of race or nation or
social group. The ‘collective consciousness’ is a major theory if Jung. according
to Jung, civilized man ‘unconsciously’ preserves the ideas, concepts and values of life cherished by his
distant forefathers, and such ideas are expressed in a society’s or race’s
myths and rituals. Creative writers have used myths in their works and critics
analyze text is called archetypal criticism. T.S.Eliot has used mythical
patterns in his creative works and the wate land is a good example of it.
TWO TYPES OF CRITICISM AND THE HUMANITIES
Like
science literary criticism is also a systematized and organized body of
knowledge. Science dissects and analyses nature and facts. Similarly literary
criticism analysis and interprets literature. Frye further says that literary
criticism and it’s theirs and techniques can be taught, but literature cannot
be taught dather it is to be felt and enjoyed. This kind of criticism will give
only the background information about a work. A meaningless criticism will
distract the reader from literature. Literature
is a part of humanities and humanities include philosophy and history also.
These two branches of knowledge provide a kind of pattern for understanding
literature.
FOMALISTIC CRITICISM & HISTORICAL
CRITICISM
These
are different types of criticism and most of them remain commentaries on texts.
There is a type of criticism, which focuses only on an analysis of a text. Such
a criticism confines itself to the text and does not give any other background
information about the text. This type of formalistic or structural criticism
will help the readers in understanding a text only to some extent. What the
readers, require today is a synthesis of structural criticism and historical
criticism. Archetypal criticism is a synthesis of structural criticism and
historical criticism.
LITERARY CRITICISM IS A SCIENCE
Science
explores nature and different branches of science explore different aspects of
nature. Physics is a branch of science, which explores matter and natural forces
of the universe. Physics and astronomy gained their scientific significance and
they were accepted as branches of science during the renaissance. Social
science assumed their significance as part of science in the twentieth century.
Similarly, literary criticism today, has become systematic in its analysis and
there fore it could be considered as a science. Based on this concept a work of
literature may be critically evaluated, says Northrop Frye
THE INDUCTIVE METHOD OF ANALYSIS
Structural criticism & Inductive
Analysis
Towards
the close of the first section, Frye contends that structural criticism will
help a reader in understanding a text, and in this analysis, he proceeds
inductively. That is from particular truths. Owing to jealousy, Othello, in the
Shakespearean play, inflicts upon himself affliction and this is the particular
truth of the general truth of life that jealousy is always destructive. This is
called the inductive method of analysis under structural criticism and Frye disuses
this in detail in this section of the essay.
Archetypal criticism and its facets
Archetypal
criticism is an all inclusive them. It involves the efforts of many
specialists, and at every stage of interpretation of a text, it is based “on a
certain kind of scholarly organization. An editor is needed to “élan up” the
text; a rhetorician analyses the narrative pase; a philologist scrutinizes the choose
and significance of words; a literary social historian studies the evolution of
myths and rituals.
DEDUCTIVE
METHOD OF ANALYSIS RHYTHM AND PATTERNS IN LITERATURE.
An
archetypal critic, under the deductive method of analysis proceeds to establish
the meaning of a work from the general truth to the particular truth.
Literature is like music and painting. Rhythm is an essential characteristic of
music and painting, pattern is the chief virtue. Rhythm in music is temporal
and pattern in painting is spatial. In literature both rhythm and pattern is
spatial. In literature both rhythm and pattern are recurrence of images, forms
and words. In literature rhythm means the narrative and the narrative presents
all the events and episodes as a sequence and hastens action.
NORTHOP
FRYE’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM
Frye
has written ‘the Archetypes of literature’ in 1951 and then ‘Anatomy of
criticism’ in 1957 which is his one of the well-renowned works. In his book “Anatomy
of criticism” Frye has covered most the archetypal approaches in the theory of
literature and the practice of literature criticism.
In
his ‘Archetypes of literature’ Frye outlines a theory of the arts in general
and literature in particular which would be developed more fully in his
celebrated “Anatomy of criticism”
Frye’s
project is to identify and classify the archetypes of literature. The four
‘mythos’ that we are dealing with like, comedy, romance, tragedy and irony or
satire.
Frye
uses the season in his archetypal schema. Each season is attached with a
literary genre, for example;
Comedy
with spring,
Romance
with summer,
Tragedy
with autumn and
Satire
or irony with winter.
Fry
gives the context of a genre determines how a symbol and image is to be
interpreted. He gives five different
views of different fields like, human, animal, vegetation, mineral and water.
ARCHETYPAL
CRITICISM AS “A NEW POETICS”
For
Frye this, ‘New poetics’ is to be found in the principal of the mythological
framework, which as come to be known as ‘Archetypal criticism’.
Essentially: “What criticism can do?”
According to Frye;
“Is
awaken students to
Successive
levels of awareness
Of
the mythology that lies
Behind
the ideology in which
Their
society indoctrinates
Them”
Unlike
Freud’s concept, myths are collective and communal and so bring a sense of
wholeness and togetherness to social life. People and the whole civilized have
their own mythologies, but there may be the common Jung called ‘Archetypes’.
There
are Frye’s four essays titled,
1.
“Historical criticism”- A theory of modes.
2.
“Ethical criticism”- A theory of symbols.
3.
“Archetypal criticism”- A theory of myths.
4.
“Rhetorical criticism”- A theory of
genres.
From all these we are
concerned with Frye’s “Archetypal criticism” which suggests a theory of myths.
This third essay has possibility been Frye’s most identifying the four seasons
with four main plots or “mythoi” as we have seen earlier.
Conclusion:
Richter explains that for Frye:
“Each
generation rewrites
The
stories of the past in
Ways
that make sense for
It,
recycling a vast
Tradition
over the eyes.”
Of the different approaches of literary criticism, Northrop
Frye has established the validity of the archetypal approach and its relevance
in the elucidation of a text. About mythology, as it is the third theory of the
essay ‘Archetypal criticism’, Frye points out there are only a few species of
myth though there are an infinite numbers of individual myths. For example,
these species or archetypes of myths include
“Myths
of creation, of fall,
Of
exodus and migration of
The
destruction, of the human
Race
in the past or the future,
And
of redemption.”
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