Emilia comes into the couples bedroom after Othello smothers Desdemona, but hears Desdemona cry out. QAFQAZ UNIVERSITY SPRING, 2013. Jung was also more preoccupied with dreams and fantasies, because he saw them as exclusively (purely) products of the unconscious, in contrast to literature, which he oddly believed, citing Joyces Ulysses as an example, was created in the full light of consciousness (15:123). 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. 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. He has already judged and condemned her, but he is still hunting evidence, seeking to justify to himself the stand he has already taken. The Moor is eventually captured, tortured, and slain by Disdemonas relatives, while the ensign dies during torture for another crime. The character of Iago is so conducted, that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised. This passage reveals how much Othello has deteriorated as far as his ability to reason. to view the complete essay. Wow! This does not stop her, though, from continuing to care for Othello. As the play progresses, and Iagos plan culminates, Othellos good fortune begins to turn. As Iago asserts to Roderigo, Virtue? Citations By the end of the play, he has brought down his world around him with the relentless force that made him a great general turned inward, destroying both what he loved best in another and in himself. The archetypal characteris a simple character template recognizable to all readers. Archetypal Criticism Archetypal theory and criticism, although often used synonymously with Myth theory and crticism, has a distinct history and process. William Shakespeare utilized archetype frequently as a literary device in his plays. To learn more, read our. When Othello cant dismiss his suspicions of his wife being unfaithful any longer he starts to lose his morality . . 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). Their discourse is conducted in poetic language; that is, their notions of soul-making come from the Romantics, especially William Blake and John Keats. An archetype is universal; it is generated by man's psyche regardless of time of place. To furnish me with some swift means of death He sees it, in itself almost irresistible, aided at every step by fortunate accidents and the innocent mistakes of its victims. In Othello, the themes such as love and jealousy reflects on the characters motivation and their values. 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. That such a man should unravel so completely, ushered by jealousy and hatred into a bestial worldview that cancels any claims of human virtue and self-less devotion, shocks and horrifies. (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. Toril Moi, trans. To you, preferring you before her father, Jung most frequently used myth (or mythologem) for the narrative expression, on the ethnological level (Collected 9, pt. 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. First Cassio lands to deliver the news of Othellos marriage and, like the best man, supplies glowing praise for the groom and his bride; next Desdemona, accompanied by Iago and his wife, Emilia, enters but must await news of the fate of Othellos ship. Ironically, as in the feminist revisioning of explicitly male-biased Jungian theory, the rise in the 1980s of Reader-response theory and criticism and the impetus for canon revision have begun to contribute to a revaluation of Jung as a source of literary study. Abstract. Archetypal Criticism Archetypal criticism argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works, . By trying to hide the fact that Othello had murdered her, Desdemona has chosen to put the honor of their love above honesty. what is wrong with franklin baby on tiktok. We'll take a look right away. In addition, Othello is far from being a perfect character - another quality that meets Aristotle's requirements. 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. 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. The scapegoat is the character that gets blamed for everything regardless if he or she was actually the one who did or not (Archetypes). Uncover new sources by reviewing other students' references and bibliographies, Inspire new perspectives and arguments (or counterarguments) to address in your own essay. Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory. "Who can control his fate?" I do perceive here a divided duty: Bettina Knapps 1984 effort at an authoritative demonstration of archetypal literary criticism exemplified this pattern. Unfortunately, this got the ball rolling for Othellos inevitable downfall. Nothing extenuate, Of one that loved not wisely but too well, : Feminist: Ex. 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). Archetypal criticism is a type of literary criticismexamining the presence of archetypal characters within a piece of literature. 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. 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. 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). 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. Further, the text offered confirmation (and poetic representation) of the only direct contribution Jung made to literary theory: a distinction between psychological and visionary texts (Collected 15:89-90). R. F. C. Hull, 2 vois., 1973-75). Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, The Critical Analysis Of A Novel: Atonement By Ian Mcewan Atonement by Ian McEwan is a literary masterpiece and a highly critically acclaimed novel. 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. What makes you cringe? These patterns include persistent images, figures, and story patterns shared by people across diverse cultures. 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. In his "The . ukraine russia border live camera /; June 24, 2022 Shakespeare on the other hand has portrayed women as both object and subject. In archetypal criticism, under the reductive method of analysis, a critic, while elucidating a text, moves from the particular truth to the general truth. Thus, all contrastive categorization would benefit from archetypal analysis. Archetypal Criticism Volume I. For the fair devil. If it were now to die As the story unfolds Othellos character evolves in an extremely tragic way as Iago manipulates him and leaves him to rot in his misery. 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). If after every tempest come such calms, This type of criticism was first experimented by Maud Bodkin, in his book Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (1934). Dramatically, Shakespeare turns the focus of the play from the shocking crime to its causes and psychic significance, trans-forming Cinthios intrigue story of vile murder into one of the greatest dramatic meditations on the nature of love and its destruction. 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. Due to the Moor, my lord. 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. Othello A Christian Moor who has earned a high reputation as a general in the Venetian army and has recently married Desdemona, daughter of the Venetian senator Brabantio. 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). 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. "Othello is like a hero of the ancient world in that he is not a man like us, but a man recognized as extraordinary". 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. 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 . must concern itself with the archetypal, the universal, with that which is necessarily larger, more extreme than in life. The critical annotations are astute and, given their brevity, surprisingly thorough and suggestive. 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 . OTHELLO: My name, that was as fresh. Richer than all his tribe. But the great literary text for Jungs life and work was Johann Wolfgang von Goethes Faust, not because of its literary qualities but because he sensed that the drama expressed his own personal myth (Letters 1:309-10). Indeed, myth criticism seems singularly unaffected by any of the archetypal theorists who have remained faithful to the origins and traditions of depth, especially analytical, psychologyJames Hillman, Henri Corbin, Gilbert Durand, Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, Evangelos Christou. Abstract. At the center of the plays intrigue is Shakespeares most sinister and formidable conceptions of evil in Iago, whose motives and the wellspring of his villainy continue to haunt audiences and critics alike. Further, Jung termed his own theory analytical psychology, as it is still known especially in Europe, but Jungian thought is more commonly referred to today in all disciplines as archetypal psychology.. Othello makes an error in judgement, which leads to his change in fortune, and later realizes that his actions are what caused said change in fortune. As Othello came to his breaking point, desdemona foreshadows her own death and he lets jealousy take over. For Jung, archetype is an explanatory paraphrase of the Platonic eidos (9, pt. Othello is a complex play that deals with issues such as jealousy, gender, and race. Iagos motivation is anything but explainable in conventional terms. Mythological literary critics look for archetypes, characters and/or symbols with traits that are seen throughout literature regardless of time or place. As the pair kneels together, they exchange vows: Iago: Witness you ever-burning lights above, For Frye, as William K. Wimsatt and Cleanth Brooks put it, archetype, borrowed from Jung, means a primordial image, a part of the collective unconscious, the psychic residue of numberless experiences of the same kind, and thus part of the inherited response-pattern of the race (Literary Criticism 709). Archetypal criticism is a literary approach that analyzes works of literature based on the idea that there are universal, timeless patterns and themes that recur across all cultures and throughout history. Finally, Othello arrives giving him the opportunity to renew his marriage vows to Desdemona: It gives me wonder great as my content Marxist criticism would also have offered a distinctive way of looking at Othello. Othello is the most painfully exciting and the most terrible. 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. 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. - Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University, We use cookies to provide the best possible experience on our site. (V.2.316, 323) It is beyond a doubt Othello's fault that all of this wreckage befalls him, and his still has not had a moment of recognition of his failures at reasoning and understanding. BASIC PREMISES OF ARCHETYPAL THEORY: 1. 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. This causes him to lose his ability to make good judgments and decisions. 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). Othello accused her of being unfaithful, when she never was. Comparing the amount written about the two plays, people find Hamlet more interesting to discuss. archetypal criticism in othello america undercover life of crime Juni 12, 2022. used kawai upright piano . However, as the play progresses, jealousy clamps down his mind, and his decisions are colored with jealousy that Desdemona is betraying him, leading him to kill her and take his own life. After confronting Desdemona of her crimes he decides to carry out his overall plan to end his trues loves life. Because of that, it has generated a lot of literary criticism in the 400 years since it was written and first . The dynamic of Othellos character significantly changes throughout the play. 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). However, in William Shakespeare's Othello, Emilia's character portrays three completely different archetypes and they all come through in strategical places. He ends up killing her out of jealousy; when she does not deserve it. 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 archetypal critic would also say that the recurring patterns in literature prove that there are universal Desdemona is shown as the most pure and proper of the women in Othello and is put into the center of all the drama. This is not a satisfactory frame of mind for an investigator, and it is certainly not an . Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous, Posted on . 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 storm that divides the Venetian fleet also disperses the Turkish threat and clears the way for the lovers happy reunion and peaceful enjoyment of their married state. For Cassirer, reason alone cannot lead to truth, but mythical thinking which focuses on immediate experience is essential. Jung and the Humanities: Toward a Hermeneutics of Culture. Othello, being a hero, enjoys a good reputation and has notable qualities. The example essays in Kibin's library were written by real students for real classes. Alfiero, like Iago, similarly arouses the Moors suspicions by stealing Disdemonas handkerchief and planting it in Cassios bed-room. 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. 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. Farewell! In his play, he portrays Othello like a tragic hero, a type of literary character. 2. The men of the play manipulate her image of a naive lover to being a strumpet! (V.ii.94). (2023). Often in our society people are labelled as, or fit into a, certain character mould and their behaviour and actions remain consistent. Kibin, 2023. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/an-archetype-criticism-of-othello-a-play-by-william-shakespeare-yJF4zltX. The three fundamental qualities of an archetype are: An archetype is a preconscious, instinctual expression of man's basic nature. In Shakespeare's Othello, Iago is one of the most compelling villains in English literature. 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. A tragic hero is a hero nonetheless, but it all comes down to how they hold themselves together in the face of. 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. His destruction is essentially precipitated by his own actions, as well as by the actions of the characters surrounding him. No products in the cart. Within these three days let me hear thee say In Shakespeare?s play Othello, Othello himself is the tragic hero. In the essay Frye critically analyses literature against the backdrop of rituals and myths. Othello is a train wreck that the audience horrifyingly witnesses, helpless to prevent or look away. The main ideas of Othello are jealousy and revenge. I pray you, in your letters, Aristotle believed that the plot is the most important element in a play and that plot also clearly points out the problem of any characters to be solved. By the end of the play, he has brought down his world around him with the relentless force that made him a great general turned inward, destroying both what he loved best in another and in himself. Iago tries to prove Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio which increases Othello's torments of jealousy. (2.1.191-93) Setting the scene. Beat a Venetian and tradud the state, Where a malignant and a turband Turk While adding to the tone of the story it also adds to the characters overall personality from the reader's perspective. Let us know! I will withdraw Now art thou my lieutenant. And let the labouring barque climb hills of seas 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). The first systematic application of Jungs ideas to literature was made in 1934 by Maud Bodkin in Archetypal Patterns in Poetry: An attempt is here made to bring psychological analysis and reflection to bear upon the imaginative experience communicated by great poetry, and to examine those forms or patterns in which the universal forces of our nature there find objectification (vii). In a mess of questions of good and evil, right and wrong, critical supporters of Iago (T.S. Othello relies easily on Iago to believe without being thought deeply. That Cassios not alive. Egypt) and titles (e.g. The tragic hero archetype is used in many different pieces of writing and with every character comes a different way of using it. ("Literary Criticism.") 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 . This book established the priority of interest in the archetypal over the mythological. That not another comfort like to this 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. 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. The execution of his wit, hands, heart Kibin, 2023, www.kibin.com/essay-examples/an-archetype-criticism-of-othello-a-play-by-william-shakespeare-yJF4zltX. No more of that. 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. In Othello, the plot meets the definition of both Aristotle and Shakespeare on a tragedy. What is striking about Shakespeares alteration of Cinthios grisly tale of murder and villainy is the shift of emphasis to the provocation for the murder, the ennobling of Othello as a figure of great stature and dignity to underscore his self-destruction, and the complication of motive for the ensigns actions. Iago: My friend is dead. Archetypes Archetypal criticism focuses on patterns in a literary work that commonly occur in other literary works. Hillman also discovers archetypal precursors in Neoplatonism, Heraclitus, Plotinus, Proclus, Marsilio Ficino, and Giambattista Vico. This last text explicitly named the movement and demonstrated its appropriation of archetypal theory for feminist ends in aesthetics, analysis, art, and religion, as well as in literature. 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). 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. I know not ift be true; But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, Will do as if for surety (2.1. "An Archetype Criticism of Othello, a Play by William Shakespeare." . But Jung's theory of the archetypes of the collective unconscious differs . I took by th throat the circumcisd dog, Othello: I greet thy love, Olympus-high, and duck again as low Misled by the handkerchief, his love token to Desdemona, that Iago has planted in Cassios room and by a partially overheard conversation between Iago and Cassio, Othello, by the end of act 3, forsakes his wife and engages himself in a perverse version of the marriage ceremony of act 2 to Iago. This juxtaposition between Othello's transparency and Iago's duality identifies him as a sympathetic character despite his actions. The tragic heros downfall, said Aristotle, was brought upon by some error of judgement. James Baird, Jungian Psychology in Criticism: Theoretical Problems, Literary Criticism and Psychology (ed. Earnest Cassirer, a social anthropologist was an important influence on myth criticism. Cinthios version of Iago is conventionally driven by jealousy of a superior and lust for his wife. He carries out his own execution for a violation that threatens social and psychic order. The three women are Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. Othello is first shown as a hero of war and a man of, The extent of which Othello is a tragic hero has been open to much debate; the basis on which he is judged falls to Aristotles established view of the crucial elements that distinguish whether a person is truly tragic.