April 2020
15
ISSN 2278 0742
Archetypes of Blyton Himanjali Gollapinni
Abstract:
This article intends to perceive literary texts from the lenses of a popular form of literary criticism known as the archetypal theory of literary criticism. Webster‘s dictionary defines archetypes as the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies. For further understanding of the concept of an archetype let‘s take certain familiar terms for example, such as a hero, a quest, a wish granting tree, the image of the endless sea, the rising sun and so on, the above terms all sound strangely familiar and seem to be embedded into our subconscious mind, they are also frequently found in literary texts and folktales across cultures and continents, for example literary texts such as Homer‘s ―Iliad‖ and ―Beowulf‖ were both composed simultaneously around the eighth century across two different regions of the world, and yet contain similar symbols and patterns, such as the journey of the hero, the quest myth, a fatal tragedy and so on, these repeating patterns of symbols myths and images are termed as archetypes. Critiquing a literary text based upon the presence of these repeating symbols, patterns and images is what forms the basis of archetypal criticism. This form of criticism was popularized by the Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye in his popular essay titled ―Archetypes of Literature‖. This article intends to throw light upon the archetypal form of literary criticism taking Northrop Frye‘s article titled archetypes of literature as the main concept. This article will also view the works of the famous children‘s author Enid Blyton in the light of Frye‘s theory of archetypal criticism. Key words: Archetype, Quest Myth, Author‘s Mythology,
Every human society possesses a mythology which is inherited, transmitted, and diversified by literature. - Northrop Frye Enid Mary Blyton, the celebrated children‘s author was born on August 11th 1897, in East Dulwich, London to a cutlery salesman Thomas Carey Blyton and his wife Theresa May. At the age of ten Blyton attended St Christopher‘s school for girls where she also went on to become the ‗head girl‘. When she was fourteen years old she won her first award for poetry
Volume 9 Issue 1
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