We cannot learn literature. We can only learn about literature. Sciences
like Physics and Chemistry can be learned. Art and literature is the subject of
study and criticism is study itself; study of literature. Criticism in this
manner is elevated to the dimension of sciences. Criticism is therefore
systematic. Prosody, phonetic and philology are scientific in nature. Central area of criticism is the
area of commentary but they have only little sense. They (commentators)
always go after value, reflective comments etc. Casual value judgments do not
help the promotion of criticism. Such criticisms are meaningless and we must
get rid of them. These sentimental judgments are derived from non-existent
categories and antitheses like life and books. Study of literature must be the central one or it should
be the object of centripetal perspective. In order to do it successfully we
need a coordinating principle. Literature is the inexhaustible source
from which new critical discoveries are made. This helps to keep the science of
criticism alive. In this way we are exhorted to look for more than what a poet
might have put in a poem than just getting satiated with the common reading of
the poem. Structural analysis of a work of art is necessary keeping in view
that there is a subject as literary criticism. Next we must proceed using
inductive and a deductive methods. The critic takes over where the poet left
and criticism can hardly do without a kind of literary psychology, connecting
the poet with the poem. Every poet has his set of private mythology, his
symbols about which he is unconscious.
In criticism the form of a literary work remains a problem. We are
confused whether a work is an epic or a rumor or a novel, a psychology. Our
next enquiry is for the material cause of the work of art. The origin of
certain forms are complicated and suggests us that there may be archetypes of
genres as well as images. An
archetype must be a unifying category of criticism and it should be part of a
form. The search for archetypes is a kind of literary anthropology
because historically
literature is informed by pre-literary categories such as rituals, myths and
folktales. In great
masterpieces we can see a number of converging patterns (archetypes). In
this manner (inductive method) we back up a literary work to go deep into it
later on. In Hamlet we see
how the intricate verbal structure is preceded by the images of corruption and
decay and also which is followed by the genre. All the attempts of an editor, a
rhetorician, a philologist, a literary psychologist, a social historian, a
student of history of ideas and of a literary anthropologist are needed for the
identification genre. (In inductive method we probe into the genre of a
work because the method is from particular to general whereas deductive method
is from general to particular)
Next, he talks about using the deductive method. Rhythm and pattern can be observed in almost all
kinds of arts, for example in Music and Painting. The natural cycle in nature
has some similarity with works of art. Some of these patterns acquire the
status of rituals. For example the harvest and the harvest songs which
are voluntary are examples for it. Some recurrences in nature like the day, the
phases of moon, the seasons and solstices of the year, the crises of existence
etc are equipped with a body of rituals.
Patterns of imagery
on the other hand are not voluntary but are epiphanic and involuntary. Myth
is associated with archetype. However it is safe to talk about myth in
connection with narrative and archetype in connection with meaning or
significance.
Frye then
describes the archetypes of seasons used
in Literature:
1. The dawn (The
Spring Season) marks the birth of the hero. This moment is pitted against
darkness and the victory of goodness over the latter.
This type can be
seen as an archetype used in romantic, dithyrambic and rhapsodic poetry.
2. The Zenith
(summer) In this phase we see the hero enjoying the culmination of a
relationship in marriage. This archetype is commonly used in comedy, pastoral
and idyll.
3. The sunset
(autumn) In this phase we see the isolation, sacrifice of the hero. This
archetype is commonly used in tragedy and elegy.
4. The darkness
(winter). In this phase we see the triumph of dissolution, myths of floods and
the return of chaos. This archetype is commonly used in satire.
In higher religions
ritual and epiphany become encyclopedic like in Judaism the Messianic oracle
which becomes an example for quest-myth. After understanding the structure of
higher religious works a critic can descend into genre. In this way drama
emerges from the ritual side of myth and lyric from the fragmented/epiphanic
side of myth. The
critic can find that the quest-myths have generated genres. Since art is
dealing with things that can be conceived not with any supernatural phenomena,
ideas of God and devil are seen in criticism as human artifacts.
The central myth of
literature is the quest-myth. The quest-myth is oracular and epiphanic.
It is in other words originates in a dream as Plato puts it. Art in this manner is the realization of
inner desire and outer nature. This central myth is a vision and an end to
social function. This is the social function of arts (the vision of upliftment).
One essential principle of archetypal criticism is that the individual and the
universal will be identical. The comic vision include the friendship,
communion, order, friendship and love. The tragic vision include the isolation
of the individual and the so on. In the comic vision animal world is a world of
domesticated animals and in tragic vision animal world is a world of beasts,
dragons etc.
The comic vision has
images like the water for the unformed universe and for the tragic vision the
sea is for the flood. In W.B Yeat’s Sailing to Byzantium we have images of
comic vision like the tree, the city, the bird, the community of sages, the
geometrical gyre and the so on. It is the general context of tragedy or comedy
which enables us to interpret different symbols. Frye then concludes that the
method of induction and deduction may meet somewhere, used together or merge
into one.
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