ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Archetypal criticism gets its impetus from psychologist Carl Jung, who postulated that humankind has a “collective unconscious, ” a kind of universal psyche, which is manifested in dreams and myths and which harbors themes and images that we all inherit.

Detailed explanation-2: -It was not until the work of the Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye that archetypal criticism was theorized in purely literary terms. The major work of Frye’s to deal with archetypes is Anatomy of Criticism but his essay “The Archetypes of Literature” is a precursor to the book.

Detailed explanation-3: -Wimsatt and Cleanth Brooks put it, “archetype, borrowed from Jung, means a primordial image, a part of the collective unconscious, the psychic residue of numberless experiences of the same kind, and thus part of the inherited response-pattern of the race” (Literary Criticism 709).

Detailed explanation-4: -Archetypal criticism is a form of analysis based on the identification and study of recurring symbolic and mythic patterns.

Detailed explanation-5: -The job of archetypal criticism is to identify those mythic elements that give a work of literature this deeper resonance. By their universality, myths seem essential to human culture. However, many modern folks view myths as mere fables, expressing ancient forms of religion or primitive versions of science.