Thinking Activity: Archetypal Criticism

                        Hello Readers, 

     we all know that the Department of English is must be dependent on Thinking activity task. which things are always assigned by Dilip Barad. who is professor of english Department. So The student of Literature are always do some different task of they learn some thing new from the thinking activity.

           Archetypal Criticism

    Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.

Frye gained international fame with his first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), which led to the reinterpretation of the poetry of William Blake. His lasting reputation rests principally on the theory of literary criticism that he developed in Anatomy of Criticism (1957), one of the most important works of literary theory published in the twentieth century.

1.  What is Archetypal Criticism? What does the archetypal critic do?

 In literary criticism, the term archetype denotes recurrent narratives designs, patterns of action, character-types, themes, and images which are identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature, as well as in myths, dreams, and even social rituals. Such recurrent items are held to be the result of elemental and universal forms or patterns in the human psyche, whose effective embodiment in a literary work evokes a profound response from the attentive reader because he or she shares the psychic archetypes expressed by the author. Archetypal literary criticism's origins are rooted in two other academic disciplines, social anthropology and psychoanalysis; each contributed to literary criticism in separate ways, with the latter being a sub-branch of critical theory. Archetypal criticism was at its most popular in the 1940s and 1950s, largely due to the work of Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye. Though archetypal literary criticism is no longer widely Practised, or have there been any major developments in the field, it still has a place in the tradition of literary studies.

2.  What is Frye trying to prove by giving an analogy of ' Physics to Nature ' and ' Criticism to Literature ?

Northrop Frye has given a very unique idea of Archetypal Criticism by comparing the human emotions or human Characteristics with the cycle of seasons.

*Each season is aligned with a literary genre

• Comedy with spring

• Romance with Summer

• Tragedy with Autumn

• Satire with Winter

•                  Spring

The spring season represents the Comedy. As per the genre of comedy is characterized by the birth of the hero, revival & resurrection. Spring also symbolizes the defeat of winter & darkness.

 
                                 Summer

The season of Summer indicates Romance because Summer is the culmination of life in the seasonal celendar, & the romance genre culminates with some short of triumph,usually marriage.

Autumn

Autumn season signify the genre of Tragedy. As the autumn is the dying stage of the seasonal calendar that's why the Autumn is parallels to the genre of Tragedy, because the genre of Tragedy is known for the fall on demise of the protagonist.

Winter 

The season of winter denotes the satire genre because of it's darkness. It's a disillusioned & mocking form of the three other genres. It is notes for its darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos & the defeat of heroic figure.

3) Share your views of Criticism as an organised body of knowledge. Mention relation of literature with history and philosophy.

    Criticism is as an organised body of knowledge. So it is progressive way of Literature. But Literature never organised it should free from it for the progress of Literature. It definitely deeply connected with the History and Philosophy both are important pillars  of Literature. The History connected with the myths and Philosophy connected with Morality and ethics. History stands for events and Philosophy is stands for idea.

4) Briefly explain inductive method with illustration of Shakespeare's Hamlet's Grave Digger's scene.

The best example of this method is grave digging scene from Hamlet, it is a specific scene and from that scene we come to know some general conclusion. In that scene there were two grave diggers and they seemed in quite in harmony with their work. They were talking with one another and singing a song during the time of grave digging. They were also mocking on dead Ophelia and commented that whether she allowed to buried or not. Here we can see that they have no grief for deadly one. It was their work and that's why they were habituated with it. It became their general work so they have no emotion for dead one.

5.  Briefly explain Deductive Method with reference to an analogy to music, painting, rhythm and pattern. Give an example of the outcome of the Deductive Method.

Deductive method is a journey from general to specific.Music and rhythm both are the form of art. Music is a form of art which moves in time and painting is a form of art which moves in space.Music is rhythm and painting is pattern. In a music we can understand the rhythm of it while in painting we can understand the pattern of it.Rhythm is a narrative form,while pattern is simultaneous mental grasp of verbal structure and it has meaning and significance.It provides a mental visual. By listening some of the music we can't get everything, but  by looking at painting we can get idea of it's pattern.

6) Refer to the Indian seasonal grid (below). If you can, please read small Gujarati or Hindi or English poem from the archetypal approach and apply Indian seasonal grid in the interpretation.

When , I was in third standard at that time, This poem taught by My primary teacher.

                                                               Thanks