1. Archetypal Criticism: The Sacrifice
Phases of Tragedy as outlined by
Northrop Frye

2. Drama Literature written to be performed.
Mimetic—imitation of the human aspects

3. Tragedy Original meaning— “goat song”
Tragedies according to Aristotle create a “catharsis” where audience purges negative feelings
Tragedy of Shakespeare usually focuses on the “tragic flaw” of the protagonist(s) which lead them to a bad end—usually but not always—death.
This is the “Wheel of Fortune” view, and the fall of the great man view of life
Northrop Frye views tragedy as an archetype of the sacrifice— “the hero must fall”, but it is a tragedy “that he/she falls.”

4. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy
Phase One
Heroic
The courageous innocent—full of dignity and often viewed as a “stag pulled down by wolves”
May be a “maligned woman who is proven to be innocent” Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale

5. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy
Phase Two
Heroic
Tragedy of innocence—usually involving youths
Loss of Innocence
The “green and gold world is brought low”— Eden
“children baffled by their first contact with an adult situation.”

6. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy
Phase Three
Heroic
Quest theme—tragedy is in the failure of protagonist to succeed or complete the achievement—loss of the path
Usually at the end of a protagonist’s life.

7. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy
Phase Four
Heroic/Ironic
Fall of the hero through hubris
Innocence to experience through fall—moves to the adult world

8. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy
Ironic/Heroic
Sets irony by putting characters in “lower state of freedom than the audience.”
Like Phase 2, but set not in the world of innocence but in the world of experience-adult context—not the world of innocence
Tragedy of “lost direction or lack of knowledge”
Troilus and Criseyde

9. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy
Fully ironic—a world of shock and horror
Not just one or two scenes, but entirety of the story is shocking, terrifying or horrifying on a philosophical, ideological or spiritual level.
“Hero” is too humiliated or in too much pain to be truly heroic—More of an anti-hero or “villainous hero”
Ritual in punishments, mob mentality
Sacrificial symbolism of tragedy
Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

10. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy
The more ironic the tragedy, the more horrifying the action, the fates, the motivation—the phases also move from most innocent to least innocent—the transition is in Phase 4 where the action occurs completely in the “adult” or experienced world.
The tragedy isolates the protagonist and the family from society. In tragedies families are broken up, isolated from society and fall from grace.
Ironic phases place hero in position of less freedom than audience—fatalism, or interference of fate or other transcendent restraints—laws, attitudes, traditions.

11. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy
Comedy or comic relief act as a subplot, or underplot to contrast to the larger tragedy unfolding on the stage.

12. Works Consulted
Frye, Northrop. “Theory of Myths.” Anatomy of criticism: four essays. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, —242. Print.