The critic is at the center of interpretive activity, and the critic functions as teacher, interpreter, priest, seer. William Shakespeare, born in the year 1564, is often considered to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, writer in the English language. To you, preferring you before her father, Othello was crafted at the dawn of the 17th century, shaped by complex social and geopolitical issues that new historicist critics, who seek to place literary works within a historical framework, have recently sought to unravel. What makes you cringe? Home Archetypal Criticism Archetypal Criticism, By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on October 22, 2020 ( 0 ). Othello, a play that was written in 1604 by William Shakespeare, is an example of a type of story called a tragedy. Throughout the course of the work, Othello proves himself to be very easily misled, despite his heroic status. While adding to the tone of the story it also adds to the characters overall personality from the reader's perspective. "In Sidney's view, tragedy provokes "the affects of admiration and commiseration" and so demonstrates "the uncertainty of this world". Considered according to this definition, the concept becomes a useful tool for literary analysis that explores the synthesis of the universal and the particular, seeks to define the parameters of social construction of gender, and attempts to construct theories of language, of the imaginal, and of meaning that take gender into account. The direction of Othello criticism will also be affected as literary criticism's longstanding commitment to cultural historicism comes under pressure from those who argue that explorations of context often come at the expense of literature's formal properties and affective registers, and as developments in the digital humanities enable fresh This preview is partially blurred. Othello's Integrity One of Othello's admirable qualities is that he believes that men should be transparent and honest as he is; "Certain, men should be what they seem" (Act 3 Scene 3 Line 134). "Now will I question assio of ianca, As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad; . Innocent characters also suffer, like Desdemona. No products in the cart. Iago reviews Othellos performance as a lover by stating, O, you are well tuned now, / But Ill set down the pegs that make this music. Iago will now orchestrate discord and disharmony based on a life philosophy totally opposed to the ennobling and selfless concept of love demonstrated by the newlyweds. Peopleshow more content An outburst that othello has in a crowd of his peers causes people to start to question their noble leader. However, for Othello this is not the case. Rashness: The play is replete with rash decisions. He is a character of high stature that is destroyed by his surroundings, his own actions, and his fate. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/an-archetype-criticism-of-othello-a-play-by-william-shakespeare-yJF4zltX Be sure to capitalize proper nouns (e.g. And despite frequently perceptive readings, the work is marred by the characteristic limitless expansionism and psychological utilitarianism of her interpretive scheme. Source: Groden, Michael, and Martin Kreiswirth. Archetypes Archetypal criticism focuses on patterns in a literary work that commonly occur in other literary works. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/an-archetype-criticism-of-othello-a-play-by-william-shakespeare-yJF4zltX, ("An Archetype Criticism of Othello, a Play by William Shakespeare. He is an individual of high stature who is destroyed by his surroundings, his own actions, and his fate. Consider the implications of this idea. A few names form a core of writers in English (including many Canadians)Martin Bickman, Albert Gelpi, Elliott Gose, Evelyn Hinz, Henry Murray, Barton L. St. Armand, Harold Schechter, and William Stein though no single figure has attracted the attention of academic literary specialists, and no persistent commonalities fuse into a recognizable school critics who draw on Jungs theories. Nothing extenuate, For Jung, archetype is an explanatory paraphrase of the Platonic eidos (9, pt. The play is set in Venice and Cyprus where a Moor, Othello, General of the Venetian army gets secretly married to a Venetian noblemans daughter, Desdemona. This is not a satisfactory frame of mind for an investigator, and it is certainly not an . In Act 2, Scene 1 of Othello, Iago formulates his plan to drive Othello mad. Here are some examples of archetype in Shakespearean works: Lover: Romeo ("Romeo and Juliet"), Juliet ("Romeo and Juliet"), Antony ("Antony and Cleopatra") Hero: Othello ("Othello"), Hamlet . Egypt) and titles (e.g. And it is thought abroad that twixt my sheets Hes done my office. He had even gone as far as hitting her (4.1 134). Essays and criticism on William Shakespeare's Othello - Criticism . Othello is decisive, confident, and secure in his identity, duty, and place in the world. He interprets literature in the light of various rituals and myths. Othellos motivation in the play appears to be his love and concern for his wife Desdemona, which ironically, ends up being his downfall in the end. But Jos van Meurss critically annotated 1988 bibliography, Jungian Literary Criticism, 1920-1980, effectively challenges this claim. According to Hillman, that discourse was anticipated by Evangelos Christous Logos of the Soul (1963) and extended in religion (David L. Millers New Polytheism, 1974), philosophy (Edward Caseys Imagining: A Phenomenological Study, 1976), mythology (Rafael Lopez-Pedrazas Hermes and His Children, 1977), psycholinguistics (Paul Kuglers Alchemy of Discourse: An Archetypal Approach to Language, 1982), and the theory of analysis (Patricia Berrys Echos Subtle Body, 1982). Comparing the amount written about the two plays, people find Hamlet more interesting to discuss. Indeed, the psychological resonances of the drama, along with its provocative racial and gender themes, have caused Othello, perhaps more than any other of Shakespeares plays, to reverberate the loudest with current audiences and commentators. Northrop Frye has been the most influential of those critics who have argued that archetypal patterns underlie the modes, plots and genres of literary works. He offers throughout the play multiple justifi cations for his intrigue: He has been passed over in favor of Cassio; he suspects the Moor and Cassio with his wife, Emilia; he is envious of Cassios open nature; and he is desirous of Desdemona himself. Archetypal criticism is a type of literary criticismexamining the presence of archetypal characters within a piece of literature. This book established the priority of interest in the archetypal over the mythological. In addition, he modified and extended his concept over the many decades of his professional life, often insisting that archetype named a process, a perspective, and not a content, although this flexibility was lost through the codifying, nominalizing tendencies of his followers. Twere now to be most happy, for I fear However, in William Shakespeare's Othello, Emilia's character portrays three completely different archetypes and they all come through in strategical places. Othello Zootopia Act 1 The wall Othello is referring to are the Walls of Nicosia which surround the capital city Nicosia in Cyprus. Desdemona is shown as the most pure and proper of the women in Othello and is put into the center of all the drama. According to Aristotle, a tragic protagonist is a nobleman or person from high status, who contributes to his own demise and illustrates a flaw or weakness in judgment. The three fundamental qualities of an archetype are: An archetype is a preconscious, instinctual expression of man's basic nature. Othello: I greet thy love, Othello must now face the realization of what he has done. The key to extremely detrimental jealousy lies within one's ability to recognize it or deny it. For Cassirer, reason alone cannot lead to truth, but mythical thinking which focuses on immediate experience is essential. His final speech mixes together the acknowledgment of what he was and what he has become, who he is and how he would like to be remembered: I have done the state some service, and they knowt. The romantic climax comes in the trial scene of act 1, in which Othello success-fully defends himself before the Venetian senate against Brabantios charge that Othello has beguiled his daughter, stoln from me, and corrupted / By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks. Calmly and courteously Othello recounts how, despite the differences of age, race, and background, he won Desdemonas heart by recounting the stories of his exotic life and adventures: She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them. Wonder at Othellos heroic adventures and compassion for her sympathy have brought the two opposites togetherthe young, inexperienced Venetian woman and the brave, experienced outsider. One excellent example of such an approach, G. M. Matthews's 'Othello and the Dignity of Man', has been referred to at the end of the section devoted to historical and social criticism. Using an archetypal literary criticism, Harry Potter can be analyzed by focusing on different archetypes, such as, symbols, images, and character types in the text. (2023). Archetypal criticism, then, construed as that derived from Jungs theory and practice of archetypal (analytical) psychology, is a fledgling and much misconstrued field of inquiry with significant but still unrealized potential for the study of literature and of aesthetics in general. But Wheelwright, for example, barely mentions Jung (The Burning Fountain, 1954), and he, Fergusson, and others often owe more to Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones, Oedipus Rex, and the Oedipus complex than to anything taken from Jung. to view the complete essay. Her Jungian Approach to Literature attempts to cover the Finnish epic The Kalevala, the Persian Atars The Conference of the Birds, and texts by Euripides, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Michel de Montaigne, Pierre Corneille, Goethe, Novalis, Rabbi ben Simhah Nachman, and W. B. Yeats. Frye, however, notably in Anatomy of Criticism, essentially redefined and relocated archetype on grounds that would remove him unequivocally from the ranks of Jungian critics by severing the connection between archetype and depth psychology: This emphasis on impersonal content has been developed by Jung and his school, where the communicability of archetypes is accounted for by a theory of a collective unconsciousan unnecessary hypothesis in literary criticism, so far as I can judge (m-12). Mythological critics compare one work to others with similar story . This way of proceeding had the effect of putting, and keeping, archetypal criticism on the margins of academic discourse and outside the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines and departments. In the beginning of the play, Othello is seen as content with his new bride: For know, Iago, But that I love the gentle Desdemona (1.2.24-25). Carl Jungs Contribution to Psychoanalytic Theory. The intensity and focus of Othello is unalleviated by subplots, comic relief, or any mitigation or consolation for the deterioration of the noble Moor and his collapse into murder and suicide. Examples of Archetype in Shakespearean Works. While the beautiful. (V.2.320-322) Giving up is hardly Othello's style, but this is how a noble and true man should react when he has mistakenly killed his wife. must concern itself with the archetypal, the universal, with that which is necessarily larger, more extreme than in life. By trying to hide the fact that Othello had murdered her, Desdemona has chosen to put the honor of their love above honesty. Where a malignant and a turband Turk The approaches of semiologists, structuralists and deconstructivists . An archetypal critic would also say that the recurring patterns in literature prove that there are universal Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. My soul hath content so absolute Given this background, it is not surprising to find in a 1976 essay entitled Jungian Psychology in Criticism: Theoretical Problems the statement that no purely Jungian criticism of literature has yet appeared (Baird 22). "An Archetype Criticism of Othello, a Play by William Shakespeare." Vindicated by the duke of Venice and the senate, Othello, accompanied by Desdemona, takes up his military duties in the face of a threatened Turkish invasion, and the lovers are given a triumphal wedding-like procession and marriage ceremony when they disembark on Cyprus. Shakespeare shifts the action from Venice to Cyprus. Witness that here Iago doth give up She does not fight back nor call for help, Desdemona begs for her life asking to Kill me (Desdemona) tomorrow; let me live tonight! (V.ii.97). As Iago asserts to Roderigo, Virtue? She stayed loyal to her lover throughout the entire play and in the end it did her no good. This allows our team to focus on improving the library and adding new essays. Eventually, this leads to Othellos suicide. Archetypal criticism is a product of both cultural anthropology and psychoanalysis which are academic fields that might seem to be far from the concept of archetypal criticism. Lon S. Roudiez, 1986); Estella Lauter and Carol Schreier Rupprecht, Feminist Archetypal Theory: Interdisciplinary Re-Visions of Jungian Thought (1985); Erich Neumann, Art and the Creative Unconscious: Four Essays (trans. After Othello learns of a possible affair between Cassio and Desdemona, at this instance is the turning point in Othellos fortune because it changes his views, attitudes and ultimately his fate. Kibin. James Hillman, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account (1983), Re-Visioning Psychology (1975); C. G. Jung, Collected Works (ed. Joseph P. Strelka, 1976); Karin Barnaby and Pellegrino DAcerino, eds., C. G. Jung and the Humanities: Toward a Hermeneutics of Culture (1990); Martin Bickman, The Unsounded Centre: Jungian Studies in American Romanticism (1980); Maud Bodkin, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry: Psychological Studies in Imagination (1934); Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957); Albert Gelpi, The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet (1975); Naomi Goldenberg, Archetypal Theory after Jung, Spring (1975); Julia Kristeva, Stabat Mater (1977, The Kristeva Reader, ed. Abstract. Wow! A Christian Moor and general of the armies of Venice, Othello is an eloquent and physically powerful figure, respected by all those around him. edmonton oilers jokes archetypal criticism in othello archetypal criticism in othello. A Modern View of Feminist Criticism William Shakespeare 's "Othello" can be analyzed from a feminist perspective.This criticism focuses on relationships between genders, like the patterns of thoughts, behavior, values, enfranchisement, and power in relations between and within sexes. The term 'archetype' is taken from the Greek words 'arche' (beginning) and 'typos' (imprint). It has been mentioned earlier that pattern in literature refers to recurrent images, forms and words. Of one that loved not wisely but too well, Shakespeare on the other hand has portrayed women as both object and subject. Mythological Criticism and Archetypes BY: TO: AYTEKIN ALIYEVA Prof. SHAHIN KHALILLI. Othello demonstrates all of these characteristics in the play, proving him to be a tragic hero. Kibin, 2023. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/an-archetype-criticism-of-othello-a-play-by-william-shakespeare-yJF4zltX. Archetypal theory and criticism, although often used synonymously with Myth theory and crticism, has a distinct history and process. What hooks you? Furthermore, they must also have a fatal flaw, that eventually leads to their downfall. Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture, Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Analysis of Stuart Halls Encoding/Decoding, Jacques Derrida's Structure, Sign and Play. QAFQAZ UNIVERSITY SPRING, 2013. An analysis of women being victims in Othello: Othello is a play written by William Shakespeare in the 1600s, this essay is from a feminist perspective. The term "archetype" can be traced to Plato (arche, "original"; typos, "form"), but the concept gained currency in twentieth-century literary theory and criticism through the work . The present essay, "Archetypes of Literature," is taken from the book. Let us know! An archetype is universal; it is generated by man's psyche regardless of time of place. Even though Othello had a reputation as a hero, he ends up being one of the most gullible characters in the play when he completely falls into the evil trap that Iago set for him. In addition, many powerfully heuristic Jungian concepts, such as synchronicity, have yet to be tested in literary contexts. I took by th throat the circumcisd dog, Within these three days let me hear thee say In Othello, the themes such as love and jealousy reflects on the characters motivation and their values. Desdemonas true morals is her absolute devotion to her husband. A tragic hero is a hero nonetheless, but it all comes down to how they hold themselves together in the face of. I will withdraw The tragedy of Othello is not a fault of a single villain, but is rather a consequence of a wide range of feelings, judgments and misjudgments, and attempts for personal justification exhibited by all of the participants. Thus Jungian theory provided no clear avenue of access for those outside of psychology, and orthodox Jungians were left with little in the way of models for the psychological analysis of literature. . That Cassios not alive. Feminist archetypal theory, proceeding inductively, restored Jungs original emphasis on the fluid, dynamic nature of the archetype, drawing on earlier feminist theory as well as the work of Jungian Erich Neumann to reject absolutist, ahistorical, essentialist, and transcendentalist misinterpretations. He notes that Singers Unholy Bible: A Psychological Interpretation of William Blake (1970), though oversimplified in its psychobiographical approach and its treatment of characters as psychological projections of the author, does make original use in a literary context of such Jungian techniques of dream interpretation as amplification and of such fantasy-evoking procedures as active imagination.. Farewell / Commend me to my kind lord. Not only does she try to protect Othellos reputation by blaming herself, Desdemona tells Emilia to remind Othello about her showing that she stills respects Othello. An equal case can be made that Iago here completes his role as Vice, borrowed from the medieval morality plays, sealing the Faustian bargain for Othellos soul in this mock or black marriage scene. - Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University, We use cookies to provide the best possible experience on our site. During the play Iago manipulates Othello because Lieutenant Cassio was promoted ahead of him, and also because he suspects that Othello has had an affair with his wife. And the 1980s saw a new, suggestive, and controversial direction in archetypal studies of literature: the feminist. Earnest Cassirer, a social anthropologist was an important influence on myth criticism. The story opens on Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old growing up in the upper-middle class in England in 1953 with . Othello is generally regarded as Shakespeares greatest stage play, the closest he would ever come to conforming to the constrained rules of Aristotelian tragedy. The Critical Analysis Of A Novel: Atonement By Ian Mcewan Atonement by Ian McEwan is a literary masterpiece and a highly critically acclaimed novel. As Othello came to his breaking point, desdemona foreshadows her own death and he lets jealousy take over. . In a mess of questions of good and evil, right and wrong, critical supporters of Iago (T.S. The men of the play manipulate her image of a naive lover to being a strumpet! (V.ii.94). So much I challenge that I may profess To you I am bound for life and education; The tragedy of Othello is not a fault of a single person, but is rather the consequence of a wide range of feelings, judgments, misjudgments, and attempts for personal justification revealed by the characters. while we are reading any of [Shakespeare's] great criminal characters - we think not so much of the crimes which they commit, as of the ambition, the aspiring spirit, the intellectual activity which prompts them to . Altho a tragic ending it may be, Othello couldn't stand being a such a fool to have believed such lies about his one and only love. 364-367). In spite of his elevated status, he is nevertheless easy prey to insecurities because of his age, his life as a soldier, and his race. In-text citation: This heuristic distinction was formed, however, solely on psychobiographical grounds: Did the text originate in, and remain principally shaped by, the authors experience of consciousness and the personal unconscious or his or her experience at the level of the archetypal collective unconscious? If Hamlet is a tragedy about youth, and Lear concerns old age, Othello is a family or domestic tragedy of a middle-aged man in which the fate of kingdoms and the cosmos that hangs in the balance in Hamlet and Lear contracts to the private world of a marriages destruction. The concept of the archetype is a venerable philosophical principle that came into new prominence and usage in the twentieth century with the development of archetypal literary criticism through the theories of psychologist C. G. Jung and literary theorist Northrop Frye. Othello, unlike the other Shakespearean comedies, adds three more acts to the romantic drama, shifting from comic affirmation to tragic negation. From the moment when the temptation of the hero begins, the readers heart and mind are held in a vice, experiencing the extremes of pity and fear, sympathy and repulsion, sickening hope and dreadful expectation. . Act 3, one of the wonders of the stage, anatomizes Othellos psychic descent from perfect contentment in his new wife to complete loathing, from a worldview in which everything is as it appears to one in which nothing is as it seems. Unlike the other Shakespeare tragedies, which follow the common ideas for Shakespearean tragedy, Othello includes some of the ideas from classical tragedies. Come, go with me apart. It is in Act 3 Scene 3 where Othello takes on a new persona, where his confidence and happiness is tragically replaced with jealousy and rage. Frye's thesis in "The Archetypes of Literature" remains largely unchanged in Anatomy of Criticism. Othello assumes that Emilia is helping Desdemona in her infidelity. The fulfillment of the wedding night that should come at the climax of the comedy is relocated to act 2, with the aftermath of the courtship and the wedding now taking center stage. The moment he showed violence towards Desdemona, the audience lost interest in comforting Othello. However, Othello's words give a deeper insight into how he still misunderstands the situation. Bibliography Speak of me as I am. In the essay Frye critically analyses literature against the backdrop of rituals and myths. The traits of the tragic hero lead the audience to feel compassion for the helpless victim. Frazers and Jungs texts formed the basis of two allied but ultimately different courses of influence on literary history. Each literary theory will examine the text through different lenses, resulting in different interpretations. The scapegoat is the character that gets blamed for everything regardless if he or she was actually the one who did or not (Archetypes). Even when Desdemona was found after Othello strangles her, she still believed that her death was not the fault of Othello. The term archetype can be traced to Plato (arche, original; typos, form), but the concept gained currency in twentieth-century literary theory and criticism through the work of the Swiss founder of analytical psychology, C. G. Jung (1875-1961). 3. archetypal criticism in othello As in a typical Shakespearean comedy, love, tested, triumphs over all opposition. Iago's intelligence and wit allows him to make good sport of the protagonists of the play, sending Othello to his doom and that of his family. A archethpes symbol or myth leads to the establishment of a general truth. In Othello, the plot meets the definition of both Aristotle and Shakespeare on a tragedy. She is not as strong-willed like the other ladies and is Shakespeares example of the archetype of the innocence and has the bases of a flat character. Desdemona is oblivious to what is going on around her and stays loyal to her morals but Iagos rumours lure Othello to thinking otherwise. Othello accused her of being unfaithful, when she never was. His destruction is essentially precipitated by his own actions, as well as by the actions of the characters surrounding him. Desdemona senses a change in Othello and she has a feeling that she will die soon due to the hands of Othello. Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Archetypal theory then took shape principally in the multidisciplinary journal refounded by Hillman in 1970 in Zurich, Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought. Othello is a Moorish (African) general in the Venetian army and an eloquent storyteller who is respected, but often treated as an outsider. "Othello is essentially an noble character, flawed by insecurity and a nature that is naive and unsophisticated". Archetypal analysis is an appropriate model for customer heterogeneity whenever the underlying structure is best defined by the extremes. Shakespeare's play, Othello, the Moor of Venice, is a powerful example of a tragedy and its main character, Othello, is an excellent illustration of what Aristotle constitutes as a tragic hero. . Issues of genre, period, and language were ignored or subjected to gross generalization as Jung searched for universals in texts as disparate as the fourth-century Shepherd of Hermas, the Divine Comedy, Francesco Colonnas Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), E. T. A. Hoffmans tales, Pierre Benoits LAtlantide (1919-20), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellows Hiawatha, as well as works by Carl Spitteler and William Blake. Cinthios version of Iago is conventionally driven by jealousy of a superior and lust for his wife. Cultural criticism is exploring or examining the relationship of dominant role based on ethnicity, and sexual identity of person, also a great understanding of yourself.
Franciscan Friars Tor Loretto, Pa,
Southland Times Court News Today,
Articles A