1. ARCHETYPAL or MYTH CRITICISM
patterns that transcend time and geography

2. “Whether we listen with aloof amusement to the
dreamlike mumbo jumbo of some red-eyed
witch doctor of the Congo, or read with cultivated
rapture thin translations from the sonnets of the
mystic Lao-tse; now and again crack the hard
nutshell of an argument of Aquinas, or catch
suddenly the shining meaning of a bizarre Eskimo
fairy tale, it will be always the one, shape-shifting
yet marvelously constant story that we find.” (3)
Joseph Campbell
Hero With a Thousand Faces

3. “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 Standen
The Changing Face of the Hero

4. 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.

5. Archetypal Criticism also called Myth Criticism
has roots in anthropological and psychological studies
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
has roots in anthropological and psychological studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

6. Sir James Frazer Cambridge anthropologist
examined primitive rituals that indicated similar patterns of behavior and belief among diverse and widely separated cultures

7. 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
Our library contains the 12 volume set as well as the 2-volume set.

8. 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
found similarities in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the Greek Orestes so striking they could hardly be explained as chance or accident.

9. 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.

10. Carl Jung psychologist student of Freud The Basic Writing of C.G. Jung
first gave prominence to the term archetype

11. 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)
became convinced that all humans share a “collective unconscious,” an unconscious “which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn” (Jung 289)

12. 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
Jung called the contents of the collective unconscious archetypes, which he defined as primordial or “universal images that have existed since the remotest times” (Jung 288)

13. 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.

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. Jung… Inherited components of the psyche Principles Archetypes Animus
Anima
Shadow

18. ANIMUS
Physical man
Represents physical, brute strength of man and his animal instincts
Can be the “masculine” designation of the female psyche

19. 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
The image of the beautiful woman, anima, is, in C.G. Jung's words, "the archetype of life itself." In myth, anima is associated with feelings, passions, and the instinctive, unconscious aspect of the psyche. In her higher manifestations she suggests the vivifying power of soul, or spiritual life.

20. 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

21. 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.

22. Joseph Campbell
Monomyth pattern

23. Maud Bodkin Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (1934)
among first literary studies in the Jungian tradition
application of psychological knowledge to works of literature

24. 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

25. 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 has a differing opinion of archetypal patterns than Jung or Frazer…he relies on the analysis of literature to find the patterns. Archetypes are created by authors…exist throughout time

26. 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)

27. Frye... four types of literature (narrative patterns) Unifying myth
mythos
Unifying myth
analogous to seasons of year
to the story of the birth, death, and rebirth of the mythic hero

28. 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

29. Frye... Mythos of AUTUMN: Tragedy
major movement toward the death or defeat of the hero
Oedipus
King Lear

30. 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

31. 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

32. Frye...
Every work of literature has its place within this scheme or myth.
Every piece of literature adds to the myth.
For Frye, every work of literature has its place within this scheme or myth, and every piece of literature adds to the myth.

33. 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)

34. 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)
Uses insights of archetypal criticism to isolate telling patterns within literature of a given culture or author.
In An End to Innocence, he 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)

35. 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)

36. 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)

37. Bibliography 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 Culture
and Politics. Boston: Beacon, 1955.
Love and Death in the American Novel. Cleveland:
World, 1962.

38. Bibliography Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in
Magic and Religion New York: McMillan, 1940.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1957.
Guerin, Wilfred L. et. al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches
to 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.

39. 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.