Thinking Activity : Archetypal Criticism

Hello Friends,

This is the Blog is the part of my thinking activity in classroom.in this I would like to cover some points which is given by our professor Dilip sir.

Northrop Frye :-

Northrop Frye was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of 20th century. Northrop Frye developed a theory of literature based on myths and Archetypes.

       Let's discuss some question - answer ;

1. What is Archetypal of Criticism? What does the Archetypal Critic do?

 Archetype is a term of narrative design, symbol, character, dream, collective images, myths, ritual and universal thing are in literature. 'Archetype of criticism' means denotes recurrent narrative design and it may that to art into images and pattern of one another character and theme type of in literature. The Archetypal critic tries to find this pattern, symbol and myth in present literary work. 

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

Fry describes the cycle of nature in front of us. He compares criticism to nature. Follow the steps below to understand that cycle.

1.Spring - Comedy

2.Summer - Romance

3.Autumn - Tragedy

4.Winter - Irony & Satire

Spring (Comedy) :

Fry depicts spring as a comedy. Spring is a happy season. In the same way comedy also makes us happy. Does it show the possibility of something good happening? Which is connected with the concept of something new happening in life, being born new, creating something new. Along with this other- birth, development, revival and resurrection are also connected.

Summer (Romance) :

In our India, people see summer as a time of joy. Summer days are holidays. During this time people travel to different places. At this time, according to Indian tradition, the marriage system is connected. Indians marry each other during the summer. A lover joins his girlfriend. That is, an atmosphere of romance arises. So we can also refer to summer time as romance. So brother here represents summer as romance through the concept of India.

Autumn ( Tragedy ) :

The green leaves in the evergreen shrubs all dry out. It goes down and the bush is completely leafless. It is then called the autumn season. Which indicates inanimate. Similarly, in a literature, in a movie, when and any matter hero falls from good to bad, it can be said that there is an autumn time in his life. It is said to be a tragic thing. So Fry has portrayed autumn as a tragedy.

Winter ( Irony & Satire ) :

In winter the days have to be shorter and the nights longer. So less brightness and more darkness, it is seen in those days. So we can see winter days as dark days. Winter is shown here as darkness. It is very cold in India. These days are also called working days. So if you look at it in literature, it represents darkness literature. And that kind of literature is satirical literature.

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

Archetype criticism is based on philosophy and History of people. As it has been said that literature includes history as well as philosophy to convey its meaning so it displays events and ideas. History and philosophy are two important pillars of literature. History gives events and philosophy gives ideas and writer combines both and creates work of literature. Thus both are important to literature. We are not studying history or philosophy but talking only their help to understand literature. 

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

As we read some specific literary work & comes to a general conclusion, in this way we extend from specific outcome to general outcome.  The best example of this method is grave digging scene from Hamlet. It is a specific scene & from that scene we come to some general conclusion.

   

          In that scene there were two grave diggers & they seemed in quite in harmony with their work. They were talking with one another & singing a song during the time of grave digging. They were also mocking on dead Ophelia & commented that whether she allowed to buried or not. Here we can see that they have no grief for deadly one.

5. Briefly explain deductive method reference to an analogy to music, painting, rhythm and pattern. Give examples of the outcome of deductive method.

    Music & Rhythm both are the form of an art. Music is a form of art which moves in time and Painting also is a form of art which moves in space. Music is rhythm and painting is a 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 visuals. 

  

             By listening some of the music we can't get everything, but when we see the visual images (paintings) ...we can get the actual idea of the patterns.

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. 

India traditionally has six seasons: 

1. Hemant,

 2. Shishir, 

3. Spring, 

4. Summer, 

5. Rain

 6. Autumn.

 Since they are close to each other, the weather conditions of the two adjacent seasons do not differ much. So if two seasons are taken together, then the three main seasons of the year are considered: 

1. Winter, 

2. Summer, 

3. Monsoon

 The seasons change clearly in India. The weather is cold in winter, hot in summer and humid in monsoon. The Meteorological Department of the Government of India in Delhi has classified the climate of India into four seasons. 

  We can see a Gujrati poem by Zaverchand Meghani  here. He has created a poem according to that season. Going into the deep meaning of the poem, we have different meaning of different seasons according to Fry's opinion.

In this poem , poem described monsoon's atmosphere .poet try to gave beautiful view of monsoon. When monsoon come what happened it's is tell in this poem by poet.

            All these seasons have different meanings in literary language. Those seasons have been linked to human emotion. And it is writers and poets who connect it with human emotion. They make literary compositions.