Download Mythological and Archetypal Approaches

Mythological and
Archetypal Approaches
By 余璐（142200326）
Ⅰ. Definitions and
misconceptions

The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell
Mythological approach to literature

Myth critic:
mysterious elements
(Literary works)
Uncanny force
Dramatic and universal human reactions
Study in depth the “wooden hawks” of great literature:
The archetypes or archetypal patterns that vibrate in such a
way that a sympathetic resonance is set off deep within the
reader
Mythological criticism VS.
Psychological approach


Concerned with the motives that underlie
human behavior
Mythology
Psychology
Speculative& philosophical
Experimental& diagnostic
Religion
Anthropology
Cultural history
Biological science
A people
Individual
Misconceptions
In fact, myths and literature reflect a more profound reality.

Mark Schorer ---William Blake: The Politics of
Vision

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“Myth is fundamental, the dramatic representation of our
deepest instinctual life, of a primary awareness of man in
the universe, capable of many configurations, upon which
all particular opinions and attitudes depend ”
Alan W. Watts

“Myth is to be defined as a complex of stories—some no
doubt fact, and some fantasy—which, for various reasons,
human beings regard as demonstrations of the inner
meaning of the universe and of human life”


Allen Tate —The Language of Poetry
“myth is the expression of a profound sense
of togetherness of feeling and of action and
of wholeness of living”
Myths are by nature collective and communal and bind a
tribe or a nation together in common psychological and
spiritual activities

“For not only are whalemen as a body
unexempt from that ignorance and
superstitiousness hereditary to all
sailors; but of all sailors, they are by
all odds the most directly brought in to
contact with whatever is appallingly
astonishing in the sea; face to face
they not only eye its greatest marvels,
but, hand to jaw, give battle to them.”
---chapter 41 Moby Dick
Myth is ubiquitous in time as well as place.
Ⅱ. Some examples of archetypes

Archetypes
motifs & images
universal symbols
Philip Wheelwright— Metaphor and Reality
“…such as the sky father and earth mother, light,
blood, up-down, the axis of a wheel, and others…”
A. Images

1. water( commonest symbol): the mystery
of creation; birth-death-resurrection;
purification and redemption; fertility and
growth

a. the sea: the mother of all life; spiritual
mystery and infinity; death and rebirth; timeless
and eternity; the unconscious.
b. rivers: death and rebirth(baptism); the flowing
of time into eternity; transitional phases of the
life cycle; incarnations of deities.

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2. sun (fire and sky are closely related):
creative energy; law in nature; consciousness;
father principle, passage of time and life.

a. rising sun: birth; creation; enlightenment.
b. setting sun: death.

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3.colors

a. red: blood, sacrifice, violent passion; disorder.
b. green: growth; sensation; hope; fertility; death and
decay (in negative context)
c. blue: positive truth, religious feeling, security,
spiritual purity (the color of the Great Mother or Holy
Mother)
d. black (darkness): chaos, mystery, the unknown;
death;
e. white : positive aspects: light, purity, innocence, and
timelessness;
negative aspects: death, terror, the
supernatural, and the blinding truth of an inscrutable
cosmic mystery.

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“Though in many natural objects, whiteness
retiringly enhances beauty, … there yet lurks
an elusive something in the innermost idea of
this hue, …This elusive quality it is, which
causes the thought of whiteness, when
divorced from more kindly associations, and
coupled with any object terrible in itself, to
heighten that terror to the furthest bounds.”
---chapter 42 the Whiteness of the Whale

White is the color of pure, virgin, but at the same time, it
is the color of horror. The whiteness attributes to signify
the mystery of universe.
4. circle


a. Mandala: a geometric figure based upon the
squaring of a circle around a unifying center)
The desire for spiritual unity and psychic
integration.
b. Egg(oval):
the mystery of life and the force of
generation.

c. Yang-yin(representing the union of the
opposite forces of the yang and the yin):

the yang (masculine principle, light, activity,
the conscious mind)
the yin (female principle,darkness, passivity,
the unconscious)

d. Ouroboros:

Carl Jung interpreted the ouroboros as having
an archetypal significance to the human psyche.
The Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann writes
of it as a representation of the pre-ego "dawn
state", depicting the undifferentiated infancy
experience of both mankind and the individual
child. (Neumann, Erich. (1995). The Origins and History of Consciousness.
Bollington series XLII: Princeton University Press. Originally published in German in
1949.)

5. Serpent (snake, worm):


symbol of energy and pure force (libido) etc.
Cf. Claudius

6.Numbers:

a. Three: the Holy Trinity
b. Four: four seasons;
four elements
c. Seven: union of three and four; perfect order

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the Father
the Son
the Holy Spirit
“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that
in it he had rested from all his work which God created and
made.”Ge 2:3
7. The archetypal woman
a. The Good Mother---birth, fertility, etc.

Demeter, in ancient Greek
religion and Greek mythology, is
the goddess of the harvest, who
presided over grains and the
fertility of the earth.
Ceres, in ancient Roman religion,
was a goddess of agriculture, grain
crops, fertility and motherly
relationships.
b. The Terrible Mother---sensuality, death,
the unconscious, etc.
Siren, in Greek mythology, were
dangerous yet beautiful creatures, who
lured nearby sailors with their
enchanting music and voices to
shipwreck on the rocky coast of their
island.
c. The Soul Mate---inspiration and spiritual
fulfillment
荣格的阿尼玛情节（the Jungian anima）
“在男人的无意识当中，通过遗传方式留存了女人
的一个集体形象，借助于此，他得以体会到女性的
本质。”
8. The Wise Old Man


Represent wisdom & moral qualities
Appears when hero is in a hopeless and
desperate situation.
9. The Trickster(shadow archetype)
the opposite of the wise old man
a positive function
“He is a forerunner of the saviour, and, like him, God, man, and
animals at once. He is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and
divine being…” (Jung, Archetypes 263)
The trickster archetype is particularly notable in African
American and American Indian cultures.
10. Garden

paradise; innocence; unspoiled beauty; fertility

11.Tree( life of the cosmos):


inexhaustible life and symbol of immortality
the cross of redemption as the tree of life in
Christian iconography

12. Desert:

spiritual aridity; death; nihilism, hopelessness.
B. Archetypal Motifs or Patterns

1. Creation: how the cosmos, nature, and
humankind were brought into existence

2. Immortality:
a. Escape from time: return to paradise
b. Mystical submersion into cyclical time
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3. Hero archetypes( transformation&redemption)
a. The quest:
hero
impossible tasks
save
kingdom
b. Initiation:
separation transformation
return
c. The sacrificial scapegoat:
hero die to atone for people’s sins
&restore the land to fruitfulness.
C. Archetypes as Genres

Northrop Frye--- Anatomy of Criticism

The mythos of spring: comedy
The mythos of summer: romance
The mythos of fall: tragedy
The mythos of winter: irony
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Myth is a “structural organizing principle of
literary from” and archetype is essentially an
“element of one’s literary experience”.
Ⅲ. MYTH CRITICISM IN
PRACTICE
Traditional critic
vs.
Myth critic
History and the
biography of the
writer
Prehistory and
the biographies
of the gods
Formalistic critic
vs.
Myth critic
Shape and
symmetry of the
work itself
Inner spirit
Freudian critic
vs.
Myth critic
Artifact as the
product of some
sexual neurosis
Manifestation of
vitalizing,
integrative forces
A. Anthropology and Its Uses


The influence of modern anthropology on
myth critic.
Cambridge Hellenists(剑桥希腊学者):

R.R.Marett Anthropology and the Classics;
Jane Harrison Themis;
Gilbert Murray Euripides and His Age;
F. M. Cornford Origin of Attic Comedy;

Sir James G. Frazer The Golden Bough.

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The Golden Bough
Aeneas and the Sibyl present the
golden bough to the gatekeeper of
Hades to gain admission.
---Joseph Marroad William Turner
To define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought,
discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat and
many other symbols and practices.
《金枝》一书内容丰富，描述了原始人的灵魂崇拜、土地崇拜、树木崇拜、
禁忌习俗、巫术、人祭、婚姻等信仰和风俗，为以后的民族学家和人类学
家提供了丰富的资料。弗雷泽把人类的智力发展划分为三个阶段：巫术
（亦称前万物有灵阶段）、宗教、科学。认为巫术阶段在形式上与科学阶
段相近，与宗教阶段不同。巫术与宗教都在追求自然规律（虽然方式不
同），但宗教寄希望于神的干预。

Central motif is the archetype of
crucifixion and resurrection, specially the
myths describing the “killing of the divine
king.”

“…Then man-god must be killed as soon as he
shows symptoms that his powers are beginning to
fail, and his soul must be transferred to a vigorous
successor before it has been seriously impaired by
threatened decay.”

Frazer claims that this legend of rebirth
is central to almost all of the world's
mythologies.
Scapegoat archetype

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The motif: by transferring the corruptions of
the tribe to a sacred animal or person, then
by killing this scapegoat, the tribe could
achieve the cleansing and atonement thought
necessary for natural and spiritual rebirth.
Cf. Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery
Mythological approach to
drama

Sophocles’s Oedipus

Thebes : Laius(father) Jocasta(mother)
Corinth : Polybus Merope
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Two archetypal motifs
(1) In the quest motif
(2) In the king-as-sacrificial-scapegoat motif