| UNIT 422-1: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY LITERARY THEORIES |
| 422.1.4.4. ARCHETYPAL APPROACH |
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| A critical approach that has been gaining considerable attention recently is the archetypal, sometimes called the totemic, mythological, or ritualistic. It occupies a curious position among other methods; it requires a close textual reading, like the formalistic, and yet it is concerned humanistically with more that the intrinsic value of aesthetic satisfaction; it seems psychological insofar as it analyzes the work of art's appeal upon basic cultural patterns as central to that appeal; it is historical in its demonstration of literature's timeless value, independent of particular periods. There are two forces represented by Frazer and Jung - asserting the validity of myth, and its retention in the social memory - strongly appealed to the creative imagination. |
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The major work of Sir James Frazer constitutes a monumental study of kajic and
religion, tracing numerous myths back to prehistoric beginnings. |
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Jung departed from the work of Freud. So far as archetypal criticism is concerned,
his chief contribution is the theory of the collective unconsciousness. |
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| Archetypal criticism does not necessarily go back to specific myths. IT may discover basic cultural patterns which assume a mythic quality in their permanence within a particular culture. Nevertheless, the totemic approach obviously reflects the contemporary dissatisfaction with the scientific concepts of man as at his highest, rational. |
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 Points to Remember  |
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| QUESTIONS |
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| A. |
Answer the following questions: |
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| 1. |
How could we apply psychological to conduct literary studies? |
| 2. |
"A moral theory will be more concert and explicit. The more clearly defined if the social group in whose name it will speak." Elaborate. |
| 3. |
"Literature is a social phenomenon". How? |
| 4. |
What does mythological approach require? |
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| B. |
Find out more about the following literature figures than what is written here and write short notes on them: |
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| (a) |
Jean Paul Sartre |
| (b) |
I. A. Richards |
| (c) |
F. L. Lucas |
| (d) |
Homer |
| (e) |
Frederick Engels |
| (f) |
Ezra Pound |
| (g) |
Sigmund Freud |
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| 422.1.5. THE 20TH CENTURY AWAKENING: A SEARCH FOR THE ROOT |
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| A search for the root and an idea of it as well came into Indian culture in the early decades of the twentieth century - as a task which was never undertaken by the nineteenth century intelligensia. A realistic inquiry into tradition helped the nationalist feelings to spread further. Kumarswami and Abanindranath Tagore organized the 'Bengal School Movement'. Nandalal Bose, Mukul De and other students were asked to practice after the drawings of the indigeneous kalighat-painters and to copy from Ajanta and Bagh panels; the tumultuous waves of nationalist movement merged into the magnitude of cultural awakening as poets sang, artists drew, bards in villages narrated, and nationalist leaders spoke in the same tune. Nandala Bose was asked to decorate the pandal for a political conference in 1926. Rabindranath organized an exhibition of the works of new artists of revived tradition in Bombay. Their exhibited paintings, according to Tagore, were no imitations of the 'modernist' art. After some years, in a latter (dated October 5, 1930) from Russia, Rabindranath further elaborated his stand by informing that the revolutionaries in Russia were sparing no effort to protect and honour the traditional art and folk-art which had so long been held in low esteem. |
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| This effort to revive, however, had started years before Tagore visited Russia. Years before he came to learn about the cultural consciousness of October revolutionaries, Rabindhranath himself had founded Shantiniketan and Sriniketan. The inappropriate dream of the nineteenth century turned itself into a conceivable reality in those early days of twentieth century. It remained conceivable until the 1940's, as poets and artists did not tire in the search for root and the dream became more conceivable as people's democratic movements were getting crystalised all over India in the forties. |
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