archetypal criticism in othello

364-367). And despite frequently perceptive readings, the work is marred by the characteristic limitless expansionism and psychological utilitarianism of her interpretive scheme. The traits of the tragic hero lead the audience to feel compassion for the helpless victim. He turns to Iago, who has been brought before him to know the reason for his actions. The next significant development in archetypal theory that affected literary studies grew out of the effort made by U.S.-born, Zurich-trained analyst James Hillman (b. 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 scene has suggested to some critics that Iagos true motivation for destroying the marriage of Desdemona and Othello is a repressed homosexual love for Othello. Learn what works (and what doesn't) from the reader's perspective. But Jos van Meurss critically annotated 1988 bibliography, Jungian Literary Criticism, 1920-1980, effectively challenges this claim. However, in William Shakespeare's Othello, Emilia's character portrays three completely different archetypes and they all come through in strategical places. You know how looking at a math problem similar to the one you're stuck on can help you get unstuck? Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, Even French feminist Julia Kristeva has been brought to praise a Jungian contribution to feminist discourse on the maternal: recognition that the Catholic churchs change of signification in the assumption of the Virgin Mary to include her human body represented a major shift in attitude toward female corporaiity (113). Thus, with the archetypal theorists multiplying across disciplines on the one hand and the clinically practicing followers serving as (generally inadequate) critics on the other, archetypal literary theory and criticism flourished in two independent streams in the 1960s and 1970s. 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). Historical is basically know the background story before you making assumptions off the text, and to better understand text lookup time period close to the time like 1600's . Archetypes Archetypal criticism focuses on patterns in a literary work that commonly occur in other literary works. OTHELLO: Iago critics. In Shakespeare?s play Othello, Othello himself is the tragic hero. The tragic hero archetype is used in many different pieces of writing and with every character comes a different way of using it. The example essays in Kibin's library were written by real students for real classes. . It has been mentioned earlier that pattern in literature refers to recurrent images, forms and words. This explains his fascination with a text like Rider Haggards novel She: The History of an Adventure (1886-87), with its unmediated representation of the anima. As Jung himself noted: Literary products of highly dubious merit are often of the greatest interest to the psychologist (Collected 15:87-88). Van Meurs also does a service by resurrecting successful but neglected early studies, such as Elizabeth Drews of T. S. Eliot (1949), and discovering value even in reductionist and impressionistic studies, such as June Singers of Blake. 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. Iago replies: Demand me nothing; what you know, you know: / From this time forth I never will speak word. By Iagos exiting the stage, closing access to his motives, the focus remains firmly on Othello, not as Iagos victim, but as his own. James Baird, Jungian Psychology in Criticism: Theoretical Problems, Literary Criticism and Psychology (ed. While adding to the tone of the story it also adds to the characters overall personality from the reader's perspective. Child and Youth Care and Disability CYC 3000 Assignment: Getting to Know Disability Justice A deep dive into activists introduced by L. Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Due Week 2, Friday at 11:59p It is important that you begin to learn about the various people and organizations that are leading the conversation on disability justice. 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. I will withdraw Othello is a tragedy plan written by William Shakespeare. - Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University, We use cookies to provide the best possible experience on our site. Within these three days let me hear thee say Kibin, 2023. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/an-archetype-criticism-of-othello-a-play-by-william-shakespeare-yJF4zltX. (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. 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. Despite naively playing into Iago's hands earlier by giving him the handkerchief, Emilia shows her earnest loyalty to Desdemona. As the pair kneels together, they exchange vows: Iago: Witness you ever-burning lights above, After Othello returns from war at sea with the Turks, his fortune begins a downward spiral. 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. Essays may be lightly modified for readability or to protect the anonymity of contributors, but we do not edit essay examples prior to publication. A fig! Self-interest is all that matters, and love is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Othello and Desdemona cannot possibly remain devoted to each other, and, as Iago concludes, If sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an err-ing barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her. The problem of Iagos motivation to destroy Othello and Desdemona is not that he has too few motives but too many. In Shakespeare's, An outburst that othello has in a crowd of his peers causes people to start to question their noble leader. archetypal criticism in othelloboone county wv obituaries. : 2022625 : archetypal criticism in othello Othello is the most painfully exciting and the most terrible. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. In The Tragedy of Othello, Shakespeare details the story of a celebrated military hero who falls victim to the machinations of a conniving villain who goes by the name of Iago. But heres my husband; At mid-century, Canadian critic Northrop Frye (1912-91) introduced new distinctions in literary criticism between myth and archetype. In Cinthios story, Alfiero, the scheming ensign, lusts after the Moors wife, named Disdemona, and after she spurns his advances, Alfiero seeks vengeance by accusing her of adultery with Cassio, the Moors lieutenant. ("Literary Criticism.") 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. ukraine russia border live camera /; June 24, 2022 His works range from ingenious poems, such as Fear No More, to plays, such as The Tragedy of Othello. This juxtaposition between Othello's transparency and Iago's duality identifies him as a sympathetic character despite his actions. In his play, he portrays Othello like a tragic hero, a type of literary character. Sign up The moment he showed violence towards Desdemona, the audience lost interest in comforting Othello. 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. Innocent characters also suffer, like Desdemona. Rashness: The play is replete with rash decisions. The major work of Frye's to deal with archetypes is Anatomy of Criticism but his essay The Archetypes of Literature is a precursor to the book. The Women of Othello There are only three female characters in Othello, and each plays a critical role in Shakespeare's artfully crafted plot of jealousy and retribution. Nothing extenuate, Marxist criticism would also have offered a distinctive way of looking at Othello. Archetypal criticism ensures the efforts of all these concerned faculties to analyse of a text hence archetypal criticism is of immense significance. Othello, though, decides to kill her. norwegian cruise line dining menus archetypal criticism in othello. New theoretical approaches appear to legitimize orthodox Jungian ways of reading, sanction Jungs range of literary preferences from She to Faust, and support his highly affective reaction to Ulysses, which he himself identified (positively) as a subjective confession (i5:io9n). . / Man but a rush against Othello's breast / And he retires." Human emotions have a lot of power over how we react to situations in life, the trick is learning how to not let them take over. Othello is characterized by his plainspoken read analysis of Othello Iago Othello's disloyal standard-bearer and the villain of the play. 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. Desdemona and Othello, therefore, face the usual challenges of the lovers in a Shakespearean comedy who must contend with the forces of authority, custom, and circumstances allied against their union. This is not a satisfactory frame of mind for an investigator, and it is certainly not an . 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. To you, preferring you before her father, Twere now to be most happy, for I fear But Jung's theory of the archetypes of the collective unconscious differs . Iago leads Othello to suspect that love and devotion are shams disguising the basest of animalistic instincts. In Shakespeare's Othello, Iago is one of the most compelling villains in English literature. To wronged Othellos service. Frazers and Jungs texts formed the basis of two allied but ultimately different courses of influence on literary history. This allows our team to focus on improving the library and adding new essays. The Moor is eventually captured, tortured, and slain by Disdemonas relatives, while the ensign dies during torture for another crime. The young Venetian noblewoman, Desdemona, has eloped with the middle-aged Othello, the military commander of the armed forces of Venice. Othello Zootopia Act 1 The wall Othello is referring to are the Walls of Nicosia which surround the capital city Nicosia in Cyprus. Placing responsibility in the stars - he calls Desdemona an "ill-starred wench" - is hardly a gallant course of action. Beat a Venetian and tradud the state, 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). This type of criticism was first experimented by Maud Bodkin, in his book Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (1934). That's a matter of opinion. He has promoted Cassio to lieutenant while leaving Iago as ensign. Evil is displayed before him, not indeed with the profusion found in King Lear, but forming, as it were, the soul of a single character, and united with an intellectual superiority so great that he watches its advance fascinated and appalled. Mythological literary critics look for archetypes, characters and/or symbols with traits that are seen throughout literature regardless of time or place. He is an individual of high stature who is destroyed by his surroundings, his own actions, and his fate. Archetypal criticism focuses on such things in a work. These patterns include persistent images, figures, and story patterns shared by people across diverse cultures. Following his anatomizing of the painfully introspective intellectual Hamlet, Shakespeare, at the height of his ability to probe human nature and to dramatize it in action and language, treats Hamlets temperamental oppositethe man of action. When Othello cant dismiss his suspicions of his wife being unfaithful any longer he starts to lose his morality . However, these fields of study contributed a lot to the development of archetypal criticism through the characters of Sir James Frazer and Carl Jung. Their union is opposed by Desdemonas father, Brabantio, and by a rival for Desdemona, Roderigo, who in the plays opening scenes are both provoked against Othello by Iago. Othello, unlike the other Shakespearean comedies, adds three more acts to the romantic drama, shifting from comic affirmation to tragic negation. Carl Jungs Contribution to Psychoanalytic Theory. An archetype is the original pattern or . O my souls joy, As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black. 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. These archetypalists, focusing on the imaginaland making central the concept that in English they call soul, assert their kinship with Semiotics and Structuralism but maintain an insistent focus on psychoid phenomena, which they characterize as meaningful. This passage reveals how much Othello has deteriorated as far as his ability to reason. The three women are Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. Shakespeare often focuses his plays on human nature as well as fate, which Othellos fate ended in the tragic ending due to his reversal of fortune once the claims against Desdemona begin. Othello is a train wreck that the audience horrifyingly witnesses, helpless to prevent or look away. To date, the British Journal of Analytical Psychology and the retitled American Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture are the best resources for archetypal criticism of literature and the arts even though only a small percentage of their published articles treat such topics. And new theories increasingly give credence to the requirement, historically asserted by Jungian readers, that each text elicit a personal, affective, and not merely intellectual response. 1924) to move beyond clinical inquiry within the consulting room of psychotherapy to formulate archetypal theory as a multidisciplinary field (Archetypal 1). He suffers barbs and preconceived notions, yet Othello is esteemed and wins the love of the daughter of a nobleman. 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. Iago will direct the remainder of the play, constructing Othellos down-fall out of the flimsiest evidence and playing on the strengths and weaknesses of Othellos nature and the doubts that erode Othellos faith in Desdemona. No more of that. Examples of Archetype in Shakespearean Works. My soul hath content so absolute May the wind blow till they have wakened death, Active Themes Emilia returns with Desdemona. 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. . This assignment is intended to encourage you, and require you . What makes Othello so unique structurally (and painful to witness) is that it is a tragedy built on a comic foundation. The archetypal characteris a simple character template recognizable to all readers. Home Archetypal Criticism Archetypal Criticism, By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on October 22, 2020 ( 0 ). That not another comfort like to this Desperate to cling to the security of his former identity as a soldier while his current identity as a lover crumbles, Othello begins to confuse the one with the other. Othello is decisive, confident, and secure in his identity, duty, and place in the world. His imagination is excited to intense activity, but it is the activity of concentration rather than dilation. As the handkercheif is stolen from Desdemona, Othello believes that she has become unfaithful to him, which leads him down a jealous path and eventually kill her. They were built to defen the city of Nicosia during the Otto-man Venetian war. In addition, many powerfully heuristic Jungian concepts, such as synchronicity, have yet to be tested in literary contexts. The first two acts of the play enact the standard pattern of Shakespeares romantic comedies. His expression of his jealousy quickly devolves from the conventional"Farewell the tranquil mind"to the absurd: Farewell the plum'd troops and the big wars. 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. He ends up killing her out of jealousy; when she does not deserve it. The contrast is most pronounced from the beginning of the play to its conclusion, switching from being calm and peaceful to acts of uncontrolled venomous rage. Othello demonstrates all of these characteristics in the play, proving him to be a tragic hero. And so much duty as my mother showd 1. FREE Archetype Essay Essay - Example Essays This recurring idea of an evil witch is extremely common and archetypal. They also attest to his self-confessed lack of interest in literature: I feel not naturally drawn to what one calls literature, but I am strangely attracted by genuine fiction, i.e., fantastical invention (Letters 1:509). Archetypal criticism proceeds from the initial assumption that every work of literature can be categorized and fitted into a large framework that encompasses all literature. Hillman also discovers archetypal precursors in Neoplatonism, Heraclitus, Plotinus, Proclus, Marsilio Ficino, and Giambattista Vico. Come, go with me apart. On a general level, Jungs and Fryes theorizings about archetypes, however labeled, overlap, and boundaries are elusive, but in the disciplines of literature the two schools have largely ignored each others work. Richer than all his tribe. An archetypal critic would suggest that all human experience is linked through literature and that this experience is expressed again and again using the same patterns throughout time and space. Frye, then, first misinterprets Jungian theory by insisting on a Lamarckian view of genetic transmission of archetypes, which Jung explicitly rejected, and later settles on a concept of archetype as a literary occurrence per se, an exclusively intertextual recurring phenomenon resembling a convention (99). 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. Egypt) and titles (e.g. The scene crowns love triumphant. Jungs Psychology of the Unconscious (1916, B. M. Hinkles translation of the 1911-12 Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido) appeared in English one year after publication of the concluding volume with bibliography of the third edition of J. G. Frazers The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (2 vols., 1890,3d ed., 12 vols., 1911-15). As hells from heaven. The tragic heros downfall, said Aristotle, was brought upon by some error of judgement. The critical annotations are astute and, given their brevity, surprisingly thorough and suggestive. In addition, Othello is far from being a perfect character - another quality that meets Aristotle's requirements. However, the Moor and Alfiero join forces to kill Disdemona, beating her to death with a stocking filled with sand before pulling down the ceiling on her dead body to conceal the crime as an accident. Ralph Manheim, 1974); Morris Philipson, Outline of a Jungian Aesthetic (1963, reprint, 1991); Annis Pratt et al., Archetypal Patterns in Womens Fiction (1981); Jos van Meurs and John Kidd, Jungian Literary Criticism, 1920-1980: An Annotated Critical Bibliography of Works in English (with a Selection of Titles after 1980) (1988); William K. Wimsatt, Jr., and Cleanth Brooks, Literary Criticism: A Short History (1957). BASIC PREMISES OF ARCHETYPAL THEORY: 1. Eliot, Samuel Taylor) characterize themselves as realists, pragmatic, practical, eschewing the supporters of the so-called weaker Othello, who conversely tend to describe themselves as somehow morally elevated, more empathetic. The Shakespearean tragedy Othello contains a number of themes; their relative importance and priority is debated by literary critics. Othello is a man of high rank in Venice. 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. Having triumphantly bested the social and natural forces aligned against them, having staked all to the devotion of the other, Desdemona and Othello will not be left to live happily ever after, and the tragedy will grow out of the conditions that made the comedy. The patterns are the major intrinsic aspects of a work. The tragedy of Othello, written by William Shakespeare, presents the main character Othello, as a respectable, honorable, and dignified man, but because of his insecurities and good nature, he is easily taken advantage of and manipulated by his peers and alleged friends. Up until Act III Scene iii Othello, "noble Moor" is in an elated position and is very aware of his importance. Eventually, this leads to Othellos suicide. Speak of me as I am. Othello assumes that Emilia is helping Desdemona in her infidelity. Despite this, Desdemona continued to stay true to Othello. Frye frequently acknowledged his debt to Jung, accepted some of Jungs specifically named archetypes persona and anima and counsellor and shadow and referred to his theory as Jungian criticism (Anatomy 291), a practice subsequently followed in some hand books of literary terms and histories of literary criticism, including one edited by Frye himself, which obscured crucial differences and contributed to the confusion in terminology reigning today. . Frye's thesis in "The Archetypes of Literature" remains largely unchanged in Anatomy of Criticism. A archethpes symbol or myth leads to the establishment of a general truth. After confronting Desdemona of her crimes he decides to carry out his overall plan to end his trues loves life. 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. Wow! This does not stop her, though, from continuing to care for Othello. Thus archetype is recognized as the tendency to form and reform images in relation to certain kinds of repeated experience, which may vary in individual cultures, authors, and readers (Lauter and Rupprecht 13-14). From the theorists, dissertations, articles, and books, often traditionally academic in orientation, appeared; the productions of the practitioners are chronicled and critiqued in van Meurss bibliography. I pray you, in your letters, I am hitherto your daughter. William Shakespeare utilized archetype frequently as a literary device in his plays. 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 . Other forms previously labeled Jungian are here subsumed under the term archetypal because whatever their immediate specific focus, these forms operate on a set of assumptions derived from Jung and accept the depth-psychological structure posited by Jung. An example, is that they had to overcome a huge obstacle such as love because Othello and Desdemona were in love but her father did not approve of it.