Thinking Activity : Theory of Archetypes Criticism

This Blog-post is a response of thinking activity on Archetypal Criticism, given by our professor Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. To know more about this task, CLICK HERE.

What is Archetype in Literature?

According Cambridge Dictionary, Archetype is a typical example of something, or the original model of something from which others are copied. 

Northrop Frye was a Canadian Critic and literary theorist who was considered one of the famous critic and influential of twentieth century. He wrote an essay on about 'Archetypal Criticism'.It's about the model of the particular structure.Symbols, like water,graveyard,nature,human, etc symbolized a particular situations. And it also give the idea that what will happen in the next scene or a chapter.So, this symbols we called the archetype of particular literary work. It also comes from narrative technique, images, and characters. Basically it become a part of Structuralism. Archetypal critic find the different archetypes from the literature. They first look at tradition and then they come to the modern archetypes.

Frye elaborate the concept of Physics to Nature and Criticism to Literature. Students who studied physics, they don't say that they study the nature. Because as Camus mentioned that, "Physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature." It is only the model but not the structure or the construction of the particular subject, Similarly, literature is the model of learning. Camus further mentioned that we can not learn literature. It is the subject of study.We can teach the criticism of the literature. Through criticism, we learn about the facts, the story which lead within particular timeline and some more things. Criticism helps us to learn literature but Literature is not the subject of study. It is criticism which helps us to how read the literature.

Body of Knowledge is about to maintain your body accordingly the the disciplines of different areas. Like generally we used this term how to stay our-self between different tools of particular work.It is used in Business, BOK. which is the set of concept.   In literature, we study economics, science,social-science,etc. Like in Phonetics we studied biologically also. As Fry said that Literature is the center in 'Humanities' It is covered up all disciplines from different sort of humanities. 

Inductive and Deductive method in Shakespeare's Hamlet's Grave Digger's scene:

Inductive Method moves from Particular to General.As we saw in the movie clip of Hamlet, the scene of Grave digger. His soliloquy of a skull of jester,Yorick. Which descibed psychological study of the protagonist also. Singing of two grave diggers talking very lightly and one of him is singing during his work which is not accepting as general. As Frye mentioned,"a process of backing up, as it were, from structural analysis, as we back up from a painting if we want to see composition instead of brush work."Frye elaborate the process of this method that if we really look the painting from such a distance, we can't see the brush work on canvas and how it composed through brush. We should come near to the painting and then we can see.

Briefly explain deductive method with reference to an analogy to Music, Painting, rhythm and pattern. Give examples of the outcome of deductive method.Refer to the Indian seasonal grid.

The Deductive process moves from General to Particular. In third part of essay, Frye talked about music and painting. As Frye mentioned,"Literature seems to be intermediate between music and painting"

Frye talked about the moving of music and painting in Time and Space. In resulting, the rhythm and pattern are recurring. This organizing of recurrence, which Frye called, rhythm is temporal and pattern is spatial. Which in literature, Frye called, literature the narrative, and the pattern, the simultaneous mental grasp of the verbal structure, the meaning or significance.

 Indian seasonal grid:

Indian seasons are quite different from other seasons. This Mythos Grid presents Deductive method. Frye talked about main three seasons and how it related the myths. Like in Summer romance and comedy is there. Likewise in Indian Seasons, there are two Sub-seasons in each Season. Here is the table.

Winter	Summer	Monsoon
Hemant Ritu (Pre-Winter)   Shishir or Shita Ritu   (Nov-Feb) (Kartik-Magh-Maha)	Vasant(Spring) Grishma   (March-June) (Falgun-Jeth)	Varsha Sharad(Autumn)   (July-Oct) (Ashadh-Aso)

 

In Indian Seasons, Sarad or Shishir Rutu very popular in literature. Even if, people called it ઋતુરાજ-King of Seasons.I found some verse by Umashankar Joshi in Gujarati which described six sub Indian Seasons in every verse.Each title is the Genre of the verse. 

લલિત

શરદ શી સુહે ! વાદળાં ગયાં.

જળ નદી તણાં નીતરાં થયાં.

ગગનથી સુધા ચંદ્ધની ઝરી,

રસભરી રમે રાસ ગુર્જરી.

ઉપજાતિ

હેમંતમાં કોમળ સૂર્યતાપ,

વૃક્ષો મહીં વાયુ કરે વિલાપ.

ઝરે નિશાએ હિમ ભૂમિ-ખોળે,

લીલાં તૃણે ઝાકળબિંદુ ડોલે.

દ્ધુતવિલંબિત

શિશિરવાયુ સુશીતળ સૂસવે,

તરુ તણાં થડથી રસ કૈં ઝવે.

ખરત પાન, રહ્યાં બસ ડાંખળાં,

સભર ધાન્ય થકી સુહતાં ખળાં.

વસંતતિલકા

ખીલી વસંત, વન ફૂલભર્યાં મહેકે,

ગાતા ફરે ભ્રમર, કોકિલનાદ લ્હેકે.

ઊડે સુગંધકણ પુષ્પ તણા રસોના,

આઘા સુણાય ગગને સ્વર સારસોના.

મંદાક્રાંતા

આવ્યો આવ્યો બળ બળ થતો દેખ જોગી ઉનાળો;

વા વૈશાખી પ્રબળ વહતા, ઊડતી અગ્નિઝાળો.

ઝોળા ખાતી રસદ ફળની લૂમ, લૂ વાય ઊની;

પાણી ડૂક્યાં, સજળ સરિતાઓ થઈ વારિસૂની.

શિખરિણી

ચઢી આવ્યાં ક્યાંથી દળ પર દળો વાદળ તણાં ?

કરે ઈશાને શી ઝબક ઝબકી વીજ રમણા !

પડયાં પામી ધો ધો, જળભર થઈ ધન્ય ધરણી;

હસે વર્ષા; શોભા શુભ નભ વિશે મેઘધનુની.

-ઉમાશંકર જોશી

 Reference.