Wednesday 3 February 2016

The Archetypes of Literature (1951) By Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye: The Archetypes of Literature


The Archetypes of Literature (1951): Northrop Frye


Respected Sir,

               As we studies Archetypal literary criticism



1.       Archetypal literary criticism means it is is a type of critical theory that interprets a text by focusing on recurring myths and archetypes (from the Greek archē, "beginning," and typos, "imprint") in the narrative, symbols, images, and character types in literary work.
In literary term but more simple it means

 “IMAGE FROM COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS” 

·         Design of narrative
·         Patterns of action
·         Types of characters
·         Themes
·         Images

These all are wide varieties of works of all literature.


2.       Nature = Physics
Literature = Criticism
Language = Grammar

    Northrop Frye trying prove by giving an analogy of ‘physics to nature’ and criticism to literature. While physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature and a student of it says that he is learning physics, not that he is learning nature. Art like nature is the subject of a systematic study, and has to be distinguished from the study itself, which is criticism. it is therefore impossible to ‘learn literature’ and one learns about it in a certain way, but what one learns, transitivity, is the ‘criticism of literature’. So while no one expects literature it to behave like a science, there is surely no reason why criticism, as a systematic and organized study, should not be at least partly, a Science.


3.       Criticism as an organized body of knowledge which literature relates with history and philosophy. Literature is the central division of the “humanities” and deals with history and on another side by philosophy.

·         Philosophy for Ideas
·         History for events

This remains center in the text.


4.       In general inductive method means going move further “Particular to general”  and throughout the scene of Shakespeare's Hamlet's Grave Digging  scene we may say that
“Hero is ready to die for the sake of love of beloved or love for the nation of this term of
 "Liebestod" ([ˈliːbəsˌtoːt] German for "love death") .
Example :- Hamlet is ready for dying for the love of Ophelia.





5.       Now about deductive method means from general to particular.

·         Time – Past, present or future
·         Space

a)      Music in time and Painting in space
b)     Music has rhythm and painting has pattern
c)      Rhythm comes from Nature like winter, summer etc.
d)     Pattern comes from symbols

Examples :- Red rose is symbol of Love  and sun rising is symbol of hope in each and every world of literature.


And for that Deductive method it means based on logical or reasonable deduction. The music, painting, rhythm and pattern there are all art may be conceived both temporally and spatially. The rhythm of music and the pattern of painting; but later, to show off our sophistication, we may be conceived both temporally and spatially. The score of musical composition may be studied all at once; a picture may be seen as the track of an intricate dance of the eye. Literature seems to be intermediate between music and painting; its words form rhythms which approach a musical sequence of sound at one of its boundaries and form patterns which approach the hieroglyphic or pictorial image at the other.


6.       As per Indian seasonal grid we have Ritu (Sanskrit: ऋतु) means "season" in various South Asian calendars, and there are six ritus (also transliterated rutu) or seasons. Literally means the "order or course of things".


Vasant Ritu or Spring
Grishma Ritu or Summer
Varsha Ritu or Monsoon
Sharad Ritu or Autumn
Hemant Ritu or Pre-winter
Shishir / Shita Ritu or Winter





And with the help of this we can apply this all seasons on one Gujrati poem entitled

ચોમાસું ક્યાંક આસપાસ છે” By  તુષાર શુક્લ

આંખોમા બેઠેલા ચાતક કહે છે, મારું ચોમાસું ક્યાંક આસપાસ છે;
ગાલો પર લજ્જાની લાલી ફૂટ્યાનું કોઈ કારણ પૂછે તો કહું ખાસ છે.

કોરી કુંવારી હાથની હથેળીમાં માટીની ગંધ રહી જાગી;
તરસ્યા હોવાના કોરા આકાશમાં આષાઢી સાંજ એક માંગી.
વરસાદી વારતાઓ વાંચી વાંચીને હવે ભીજાવું તો આભાસ છે;
ગાલો પર લજ્જાની લાલી ફૂટ્યાનું કોઈ કારણ પૂછે તો કહું ખાસ છે.

આંખોમા બેઠેલા
કોરપની વેદના તો કેમે સહેવાય નહીં રૂંવે રૂંવેથી મને વાગે;
પહેલા વરસાદ તણું મધમીઠું સોણલું રહી રહીને મારામાં જાગે.
નસનસ ફાટીને વહેવા ચહે છે, તે કેવો આષાઢી ઉલ્લાસ છે;

ગાલો પર લજ્જાની લાલી ફૂટ્યાનું કોઈ કારણ પૂછે તો કહું ખાસ છે.
આંખોમા બેઠેલા

In this poem we can say that this poem is full of beautification of earth itself in a season of  Monsoon that how earth looks beautiful in the days of rains and monsoon.

                                                        Thank You…..     

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