Archetype of Literature - Northrop Frye

Archetype of Literature - Northrop Frye

1) What is Frye trying to prove by giving an analogy of physics to nature and criticism to literature?
     
    Whatever we study is all about nature. For example physics, chemistry, biology, criticism and other subjects also. Frye says that physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature. But students says that they are learning physics not nature. We knows that in physics the learning is about nature.

In literature the same thing happens. All art is the study of Nature and criticism is the study of arts. So he says that one can not teach learn literature, but yes one can learn how to criticize. We says that "I feel cold " but in literary  sense.

2) What is Archetypal Criticism? What does the archetypal critic do? 

    Archetypal criticism is a type of critical theory that interprets a text by concentrating on recurring archetypes and myths and archetypes in the narrative, symbols, images and character types in literary word. Themes which are identified in a wide variety of works of literature. Dreams, social rituals also comes in this term.

3) Share your views of criticism as an organized body of knowledge. Mention relation of literature with history and philosophy. 

    

    In criticism we find all the basics rules with organization. In proper way. In the journals and scholarly monographs has every characteristic of a science. 

                                      

     In this term everything examined by test, proof and evidence is also examined scientifically, field are investigated scientifically, texts are edited scientifically. So we can say whole works happened in pattern. Thus, we can conclude that criticism as an organized body of knowledge. 

                                       

     We knows that literature is all about a specific phenomenon, or events, or ideas. We can not study the literary genre without the help of the literature. So students must have history of the literature and philosopher for ideas. This both things are necessary for literature.

4) Briefly explain inductive method with illustrations of Shakespeare 's Hamlet 's Grave Digger 's scene. 

      In the play  " Hamlet " we find inductive method during grave digging scene. In this method the process goes with specific to general. 

                                        

      For instance, is an intricate verbal texture ranging from the puns of the first clown to the danse ma cabre of the Yorick 's soliloquy, one thing is about corruption and decay. We find hero 's Liebestod and first unequivocal declaration of love. So by backing up we find more information about that.

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Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Introduction : 

                      In this Gothic novel women plays a passive role. The technique of narration it self shows the positive way. There are so many female characters in the novel. 

There are such things which plays a big role in the life of Mary Shelley. We can interpret that, these were the things which may lead her to write a novel like Frankenstein. 

        Her mother dies after the eleven days of her birth. Her mother was a feminist. Mary Shelley gives birth to a premature baby and unfortunately baby dies. She marries to P. B. shelley after the suicide of his first wife, Harriet. She spends her time near Geneva, Switzerland. Her husband dies in the storm when he was sailing boat. 

           All this things we finds in her works. We can say that by experiencing such things and with imagination she has written this novel.

Women characters in the novel :

       - Margaret Saville 

       - Elizabeth Lavenza 

       - Justine Moritz 

       - Agatha 

       - Safie 

       - Caroline Beaufort 

       - Female Monster 

Feminism in the novel : 

Elizabeth : 

             She first appears in the novel with her beauty. ' Very Fair ' with ' cloudless ' ' blue eyes ' and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features and with inner beauty also. That's the all thing attracts Caroline.  

So we find that this giving of attractiveness, gives the positivity of her character in the novel. During the whole novel she defined by her appearance, to Victor. 

          Victor sees her as an merely object, something for pleasure rather than being a human with actual feelings. 

He uses the word ' beautiful ' for her rather than kind, intelligent, or interesting. This could be seen as an exclamation of affection. 

We can not find any other roles of her in the novel. 

Female Monster : 

Monster to Victor : " I demand a creature of another sex but as hideous as I am. "

                            We can discusses feminism in the novel through the character of Female Monster. 

         So again we finds that the value of female is to bring joy in the life of Monster. He wants also company. By seeing Felix and Safie happy with each other, may he also felt that he (it)  can also be happy and free from loneliness. 

And also he thinks to make her hideous as he is, so no other man can not be with her. As other female not be with him. 

       Victor fearsly says that ' one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children. So he destroys her. 

       Victor could make her without womb as the body parts necessary to produce children. Then the problem of " race of devils " would be solved. So that shows the mentality of Victor towards women . 

Justine :

              She has not even gave a chance to speak, or we can say that she has accepted the blame of murdering William which was not right. 

                                      

Conclusion :        Thus  we can conclude this topic by saying that the portrayal of woman is less active. Women used as a tool in the novel. Mary has given less power or activeness to the women characters in the novel. 

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Thinking activity of Derrida's Deconstruction

Thinking activity of Derrida's Deconstruction

first of all talk about father of deconstruction :

The Father of Deconstruction is Derrida:

The Father of Deconstruction.  Deconstruction is one of the several doctrines in contemporary philosophy often loosely held under the umbrella terms post-structuralism and post-modernism. Jacques Derrida coined the term in the 1960s, and proved more forthcoming with negative, rather than a pined-for positive, analyzes of the school.

Derrida says, deconstruction is a word whose fortunes have disagreeably surprised me. Defining deconstruction is an activity that goes against the whole thrust of Derrida’s thought. Derrida has said that any statement such as “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not-X” automatically misses the point.  Not only is the definition and meaning of deconstruction in dispute between advocates and critics, but also among proponents.

Derrida’s disclaimers present a major obstacle to any attempt, to encapsulate his thoughts. He tells that deconstruction is neither an analytical nor a critical tool, neither a method, nor an operation, nor an act performed on text by a subject; that is, rather a term that resists both definition and translation. To make matters worse, he adds that ‘all sentence of the type “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not X” miss the point. Which is to say that they are at least false.

Here an attempt is made to understand the term in a way, so as to simplify it, and give its philosophical significance.



DECONSTRUCTION FOR WRITERS :

Literary theory (and deconstruction in particular) was one of the most eye-opening and exciting subjects that I studied at university, but I know that it’s a difficult one to tackle by yourself. Nor am I going to pretend that it’s going to make your life as a genre writer any easier. What I do think is important for any writer, not only for their writing style and their stories, but for their life, is to develop an awareness of the secret life of words; to begin to understand the weaknesses and the virtues of this system of communication which doesn’t just provide us with our vocation, but forms our world and our world experiences in a very real way.

And that’s where literary theory, despite its (at times) dull, pointless, academic complexity, can show you a whole new level of meaning and textual interpretation (and misinterpretation) below and beyond “everyday” reading. If you’re unsure of how literary theory differs from literary criticism, it doesn’t, not it any important way. The use of ‘theory’, as far as I understand, is a (relatively) recent appellation that reflects the move towards philosophy. If you’re interested in reading about literary theory, I can recommend no better text than BEGINNING THEORY BY PETER BARRY. It was the set-text when I studied litcrit, and I still think it’s one of the best textbooks I’ve read on any subject. Luckily, IT’S AVAILABLE (in somewhat fragmented form) ON ARCHIVE.ORG. I do hope it’s legal! I urge you to download the book and read the chapters up to and including ‘Poststructuralism and Deconstruction’. This will give you a good basis for the discussions in this post, although, of course, there is no supplement for reading the original texts. ;) I recommend suspending your cynicism that the writer is being purposefully intellectual, obscure and long-winded, and enjoying deconstructionist literature with a playful attitude, open to the possibilities of language.

DECONSTRUCTION: NEITHER DESTRUCTION NOR CONSTRUCTION :

Derrida and proponents of his work have all taken great delight in defining deconstruction as what it is not. It’s neither destruction (though it does owe something to Heidegger’s Destruktion) nor construction, and it’s both. IT’S NOT:

an analysis

a critique

a method

an act

an operation

I’m going to fly in the face of these anti-definitions. This post attempts to give concrete exercises for writers, and to boil down some deconstructionist ideas into a mess of functional methods. Although, I think the larger lesson is in finding ways to think differently, and to combine seemingly disparate ideas to create a new, more useful essence.

Needless to say, a theory that aims to show the malleability and perhaps even the non-existence of meaning, isn’t looked upon very warmly. I have a feeling that it’s almost universally disliked and démodé among philosophers. Understandable. If you’re not careful, it can fill you with the wrong sort of nihilism: not the spiritual one, but the one that leads straight to existential crisis.

To me, deconstruction stands out among the other literary theories because it so closely resembles Zen teachings; it enjoys play and GROKKING BEYOND DEFINITION. It brings together the spiritual, the textual and the theoretical, without getting bogged down by any one of them. It offers a practical way of opening up the manifold meanings of a text, of finding those veins that run beneath the surface of a story which can only be felt and privately dowsed, but are not easily studied or shared. And, most importantly, it seems to provide an excuse for my flights of fanciful language. :)

UNITY VS. DISUNITY :

Barry makes the distinction that deconstruction looks for disunity in a text, while most other forms of criticism until then had focused on creating unity. For example, at school (if your experience was anything like mine), you were taught to look for words in a passage that belong to a single theme, like sea, swell, froth, heave, salt, etc. There’s nothing wrong with this exercise – in fact, I think it’s excellent for getting readers to hone in on textual details rather than letting the sentences wash over them. But when I studied deconstruction at university, it seemed to me that this was only half of the equation; that true unity comes from a blending and mutual annihilation of opposites. So when you look for the words that constitute a theme, you also need to consider how these words work to break free of their theme, how they include other themes, are included in other (opposite) themes, and how, like the tide, their meaning comes and goes. Unity in disunity, disunity in unity.

This, to me, is the whole point of our commonplace assertions that there can be no light without dark, no love without hate, no familiar without strange, however unwilling we are to accept them in practice. Deconstruction provides a way of studying this basic, oft off-handedly touted (and flouted) precept of existence.  In a way, it forces you into the experience that all the literature you love contains all the literature you hate, and that your opinions are interchangeable with their opposites, but then it helps you to rise above this simplistic side-taking to a plane of pure, joyful play, juggling meaning, sound, sign, context and coincidence with a transcendental disregard for the one, single, all-encompassing, grand, unbearable truth. Of course this terrifies us as authors – we spend our entire lives trying to share our experiences and opinions in meticulously-chosen words.

Structuralism and literary criticism

What is Structuralism?

Structuralism is primarily concerned with the study of structures.  Here we study how things get their meaning.  It is also a philosophical approach.  The whole world has a set up.  Similarly the solar system has a structure with the sun at the centre.  Even an atom has its own structure which resembles our solar system.  Coming to the political set up, a democratic structure is the basis of our govt. [Indian govt.].  Communism has its own set up or structure.  Coming to an individual’s life a person has different names according to the nature of the structure.  A boy in a class room is a student.  At home he is a son.  In the cricket ground he is a player, and when he gets a job, he gets another name.

Another point Saussure discovered is that the meaning of a sign is arbitrary.  The same flower, say rose, has different names in different languages, but its qualities remain the same.  Saussure points out that a word assumes different meanings according to the particular structure in which it is a part.  When Yeats sings “Whenever green is found,” it means the Irish flag which is green in colour.  So the word ‘’green” represents patriotism.  In the phrase ‘green revolution’ the word green stands for agriculture.

Structuralist Criticism= Almost all literary theorists since Aristotle have emphasized the importance of structure, conceived in diverse ways, in analyzing a work of literature. "Structuralist criticism," however, now designates the practice of critics who analyze literature on the explicit model of structuralist linguistics. The class includes a number of Russian formalists, especially Roman Jakobson, but consists most prominently of a group of writers, with their headquarters in Paris, who applied to literature the concepts and analytic
distinctions developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics (1915). This mode of criticism is part of a larger movement, French structuralism, inaugurated in the 1950s by the cultural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who analyzed, on Saussure's linguistic model, such cultural phenomena as mythology, kinship relations, and modes of preparing
food.


In its early form, as manifested by Lévi-Strauss and other writers in the 1950s and 1960s, structuralism cuts across the traditional disciplinary areas of the humanities and social sciences by undertaking to provide an objective account of all social and cultural practices, in a range that includes mythical narratives, literary texts, advertisements, fashions in clothes, and patterns of social decorum. It views these practices as combinations of signs that have a
set significance for the members of a particular culture, and undertakes to make explicit the rules and procedures by which the practices have achieved their cultural significance, and to specify what that significance is, by reference
to an underlying system (analogous to Saussure's langue, the implicit system of a particular language) of the relationships among signifying elements and their rules of combination. The elementary cultural phenomena, like the
linguistic elements in Saussure's exposition, are not objective facts identifiable by their inherent properties, but purely "relational" entities; that is, their identity as signs are given to them by their relations of differences from, and binary oppositions to, other elements within the cultural system. This system of internal relationships, and of "codes" that determine significant combinations, have been mastered by each person competent within a given culture, although he or she remains largely unaware of its nature and operations. The primary interest of the structuralist, like that of Saussure, is not in the cultural parole but in the langue; that is, not in any particular cultural phenomenon or event except as it provides access to the structure, features, and rules of the general system that engenders its significance.

SIGNIFICANCE OF WORDS ' FIRE ' & ' ICE '

 Both the poems have diffrent meaning and represents the symbol and sign. One Poeam shows us the diffrent one shows the possibillities between fire and ice. Poem represents the desire and hate.

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