Northrop Frye and Archetypal Criticism: These slides cover the basic concepts of Northrop Frye’s Criticism.

Northrop Frye and Archetypal Criticism

1. Northrop Frye and Archetypal
Criticism
Dr. Ilyas Babar Awan
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These slides have been prepared in accordance with NUML’s MPhil English course
outline

2. Northrop Frye and Archetypal
Criticism
1912-1991

3. Introduction: Frye’s Contribution
Northrop Frye (1912–1991), a Canadian literary theorist, developed one of the most influential
forms of archetypal or mythic criticism. Frye extended the ideas of Carl Jung, especially the notion
of archetypes, to create a systematic literary theorythat sees literature as a self-contained world
of recurring myths, symbols, and narrative patterns.
Frye’s key insight:
“Literature grows out of myth and returns to myth. ”This means that every story, image, or symbol in
literature is connected to universal narrative structures rooted in ancient myth.
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4. Frye’s Central Concept: The Archetype
An archetype (from Greek archetypos, meaning “original pattern”) is a recurring
image, symbol, theme, or situationfound across different works and cultures.
•Archetypes are the “building blocks” of literature.
•They form a kind of literary grammarjust as language has syntax and structure,
literature has a network of mythic patterns.
•The critic’s task is to identify these archetypesand trace how they repeat and
transform through different genres and periods.
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5. Literature as a System of Myths
•Literature is a unified system, not an assortment of isolated works.
Every literary text participates in a larger mythic pattern, such as:
•The death and rebirthmotif (seen in Hamlet, The Waste Land, The Old Man and the
Sea).
•The quest (from Odyssey to Lord of the Rings).
•The innocence–fall–redemptioncycle (from Genesis to Paradise Lost).
•Frye believed that identifying these patterns helps us understand the deeper symbolic
orderof literature.
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6. Frye’s Four Mythic Patterns (or Seasons)
Season Literary Mode Symbolic Theme Example
Spring Comedy
Rebirth, renewal, harmony
restored
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream
Summer Romance
Triumph, ideal fulfillment,
quest achieved
The Faerie Queene, King
Arthur legends
Autumn Tragedy Decline, fall, isolation, deathHamlet, Macbeth
Winter Irony/Satire
Chaos, disintegration,
despair
Waiting for Godot, 1984
One of Frye’s most famous ideas, discussed in Anatomy of Criticism (1957) and summarized by Peter Barry, is his
seasonal mythos model. He relates the four major genres of literatureto the cycle of seasons, each
representing a stage of human experience. Thus, literature mirrors the cycle of nature and human life. Each
season expresses a mythic rhythm that recurs in every age and culture.

7. The Function of Archetypal Criticism
•Archetypal criticism seeks to discover the underlying mythic structure
common to all literary works.
•It moves away from individual authors or historical contexts, focusing instead
on literature as a collective imaginative universe.
•Frye aimed to provide a scientific, structural modelfor literary criticism, just as
linguistics provides a model for studying language.
•Frye’s theory “seeks to make criticism systematic rather than impressionistic.”
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8. Key Archetypes in Literature
:
Archetype Symbolic Meaning Example
Water Birth, cleansing, renewal The Flood, baptism scenes
Garden Innocence, paradise, fertility Eden, The Secret Garden
Desert/Wasteland Death, spiritual emptiness The Waste Land
Fire Destruction and purification Prometheus, Fahrenheit 451
Sun Enlightenment, vision, power King Lear (illumination)
Journey/Quest Search for identity or truth Odyssey, The Alchemist

9. Frye’s Influence on Literary Studies
Frye’s archetypal criticism:
•Bridges literary formand psychological symbolism(linking Jung’s psychology with
formalism).
•Provides a universal frameworkfor reading all literature.
•Encourages students to read texts intertextually, recognizing shared mythic patterns
rather than isolated meanings.
•Barry emphasizes that for Frye, the meaning of a work lies not in the author’s
intention or the reader’s response, but in its position within the total structure of
literary myth.
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10. Comparison with Jung
Aspect Jung Frye
Focus
Human psyche;
collective
unconscious
Literature as a
system of myths
Unit of Analysis
Archetypes in
dreams and myths
Archetypes in
literary genres
Goal
Understand human
mind
Build a unified
literary framework
Method
Psychological and
symbolic
Structural and
mythic

11. Summary of Frye’s Archetypal Theory
Concept Explanation
Archetype
A universal image or pattern appearing in myths,
literature, and art.
Mythos of the Seasons
Each literary genre corresponds to a season and
mood (comedy–spring, romance–summer, tragedy–
autumn, irony/winter).
Literature as a SystemAll texts are part of an interlinked mythic structure.
Purpose of Criticism
To uncover recurring archetypes and their cultural
significance.
Representative Work Anatomy of Criticism (1957)

12. Summary
Frye made mythic structurecentral to literary criticism.
•He turned archetypal criticism into a scientific study of
recurring patterns rather than mere thematic observation.
•Frye’s theory teaches that literature expresses universal
human experiences through archetypal formsshared across
time and culture.
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