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Showing posts from March, 2019

The Archetypes of Literature.... Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye, in full Herman Northrop Frye, Canadian educator and critic who wrote much on "Canadian Literature" and culture and became best known as one of the most important literary theorists of the 20th century. 1.What is Archetypal Criticism? What does the Archetypal critic do? In literary Criticism the term " archetype" denotes recurrent narratives designs, patterns of actions, character- type, themes & 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 & 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. 2.What is Frye trying to prove by giving an analogy of "Physics to Nature" & "Criticism to Literature"? Northrop