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. 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. Of all Shakespeares tragedies . For Jung, archetype is an explanatory paraphrase of the Platonic eidos (9, pt. They're not intended to be submitted as your own work, so we don't waste time removing every error. As hells from heaven. 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. If we carefully examine the third scene in the third act, we can see how Othello fits into Aristotle's definition of tragic hero. He turns to Iago, who has been brought before him to know the reason for his actions. Despite this, Desdemona continued to stay true to Othello. 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. "Who can control his fate?" 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. O, damn her, damn her! 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. Marxist criticism would also have offered a distinctive way of looking at Othello. Desdemonas true morals is her absolute devotion to her husband. 364-367). 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.. Iago tries to prove Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio which increases Othello's torments of jealousy. May the wind blow till they have wakened death, (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. 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. Rashness: The play is replete with rash decisions. 1. Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory. So much I challenge that I may profess 2. His imagination is excited to intense activity, but it is the activity of concentration rather than dilation. 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. To see you here before me. 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. 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? In-text citation: 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. Nothing extenuate, And let the labouring barque climb hills of seas 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. How to respect you; you are the lord of duty; The movie Zootopia uses animals to portray racism and sexism; predators do not like prey and vice versa. Archetypal criticism focuses on such things in a work. He has promoted Cassio to lieutenant while leaving Iago as ensign. 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. To you I am bound for life and education; Frye's thesis in "The Archetypes of Literature" remains largely unchanged in Anatomy of Criticism. 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). 125-126). The tragic hero archetype is used in many different pieces of writing and with every character comes a different way of using it. I am hitherto your daughter. The young Venetian noblewoman, Desdemona, has eloped with the middle-aged Othello, the military commander of the armed forces of Venice. No single motive is relied on for long, and the gap between cause and effect, between the pettiness of Iagos grudges and the monstrousness of his behavior, prompted Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a memorable phrase to characterize Iagos motiveless malignity. There is in Iago a zest for villainy and a delight in destruction, driven more by his hatred and contempt for any who oppose his conception of jungle law than by a conventional naturalistic explanation based on jealousy or envy. As scholar Edward Pechter has argued, During the past twenty-five years or so, Othello has become the Shakespearean tragedy of choice, replacing King Lear in the way Lear had earlier replaced Hamlet as the play that speaks most directly and powerfully to current interests.. This juxtaposition between Othello's transparency and Iago's duality identifies him as a sympathetic character despite his actions. A general in the army, Othello holds a distinguished place in the Duke's court due to his victories in battle, but not an equal one. No products in the cart. Commend me to my kind lord. - Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University, We use cookies to provide the best possible experience on our site. 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. / Man but a rush against Othello's breast / And he retires." Literary Critics on Othello. Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, "An Archetype Criticism of Othello, a Play by William Shakespeare." : In this quote, Othello is stating that his wife's supposed infidelity has ruined his name and turned it "black" and dirty like his own face, showing that a woman's fidelity was linked to a man's honor. Categories: Archetypal Criticism, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, Myth Criticism, Psychoanalysis, Tags: Achetypes, Alchemy of Discourse: An Archetypal Approach to Language, Anatomy of Criticism, Archetypal Criticism, Archetypal feminist criticism, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry, Archetypal Psychology, Archetypal Theory, Archetypal Theory and Criticism, Archetypal Theory Criticism, Claude Levi-Strauss, Ernst Cassirer, Evangelos Christou, Francis Fergusson, Frazer, Gilbert Durand, Henri Corbin, Hermes and His Children, Hillman, Imagining: A Phenomenological Study, J. G. Frazer, J. G. Frazer The Golden Bough, James Hillman, Jessie Weston, Joseph Campbell, Jung and the Humanities: Toward a Hermeneutics of Culture., Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious, Jungian Approach to Literature, Leslie Fiedler, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, Logos of the Soul, Maud Bodkin, Myth, Myth theory and crticism, New Polytheism, Northrop Frye, Philip Wheelwright, Psychoanalysis, Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, Richard Chase, Spring Journal, Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture, Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought, The Golden Bough, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Alchemy of Discourse: An Archetypal Approach to Language. This passage reveals how much Othello has deteriorated as far as his ability to reason. Here are some ways our essay examples library can help you with your assignment: Read our Academic Honor Code for more information on how to use (and how not to use) our library. 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). The main ideas of Othello are jealousy and revenge. must concern itself with the archetypal, the universal, with that which is necessarily larger, more extreme than in life. 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. Kibin, 2023. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/an-archetype-criticism-of-othello-a-play-by-william-shakespeare-yJF4zltX. Othello: I greet thy love, Each literary theory will examine the text through different lenses, resulting in different interpretations. 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). Twere now to be most happy, for I fear Farewell! 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. FREE Archetype Essay Essay - Example Essays This recurring idea of an evil witch is extremely common and archetypal. Their discourse is conducted in poetic language; that is, their notions of soul-making come from the Romantics, especially William Blake and John Keats. But heres my husband; He ends up killing her out of jealousy; when she does not deserve it. To wronged Othellos service. And the 1980s saw a new, suggestive, and controversial direction in archetypal studies of literature: the feminist. the characters in Shakespeare's play Othello ever challenge the right of a husband to murder a wife accused of adultery. A archethpes symbol or myth leads to the establishment of a general truth. The tragic protagonist must make a fall from a high state of being to a low state or death. Often in our society people are labelled as, or fit into a, certain character mould and their behaviour and actions remain consistent. Then must you speak Posted on . The traits of the tragic hero lead the audience to feel compassion for the helpless victim. After the. Sign up As in a typical Shakespearean comedy, love, tested, triumphs over all opposition. Between William Shakespeares most expansive and philosophical tragediesHamlet and King Learis Othello, his most constricted and heart-breaking play. "An Archetype Criticism of Othello, a Play by William Shakespeare." When citing an essay from our library, you can use "Kibin" as the author. 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. 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. The scene crowns love triumphant. 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. Richer than all his tribe. Othello, unlike the other Shakespearean comedies, adds three more acts to the romantic drama, shifting from comic affirmation to tragic negation. Othello is generally regarded as Shakespeares greatest stage play, the closest he would ever come to conforming to the constrained rules of Aristotelian tragedy. An archetype is recurrent. 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). Iago leads Othello to suspect that love and devotion are shams disguising the basest of animalistic instincts.
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