ABOUT ARCHITYPAL CRITICISM

What is archetypal criticism ?

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.There are two methods in archetypal criticism the first is indicative method  and second is deductive here is briefly explained here.

About Deductive method 

The deductive method in some sense resembles the application of a theory to analyze a work of art. It is the process of going from particular to general. Frye explains this method through the examples of music and painting. Just as music some arts move in time whereas others move in space like painting. The 'organizing principle', to put in Frye's words, in both the cases is 'recurrence', which, when it comes to temporal arts is called rhythm and for spacial arts is called pattern. Literature, in Frye's opinion seems to intermediate between the temporal and spatial as it combines the elements of both. The rhythm of literature can be the narrative whereas the pattern can be the simultaneous mental grasp of meaning and significance. The rhythm or narrative in literature is derived from the natural cycle surrounding human life whereas the patterns of imagery or the mental grasp in Frye's opinion are oracular in origin and derive from epiphanic moments. This process ultimately establishes myth as the 'central informing power' which gives archetypal significance to the ritual and archetypal narrative to the oracle. Thus Frye establishes myth as the archetype. This myth constructs a story out of the solar cycle of the day, seasonal cycle of the year and organic cycle of  human life, around a figure who is partly the sun, partly vegetative fertility and partly a God or archetypal human being.

The deductive method provides us the four phases of the myth. Beginning from the birth to the death phase with the natural cycles and symbols associated with it. This also helps Frye to distinguish how these phases are used in the genres of tragedy and comedy.

As Northrop Frye observes that in  music there is a fixed time but in painting there is time. Music is timeless. 

If we observe the painting the painting is seen in only 1 second but in music there is timelessness to learn the music we have to spend time on that while in painting it is not so necessary to give time.

When we do the criticism it is said that pattern music and rhythm of music.