Archetypal Criticism: The Sacrific e

1. Archetypal Criticism: The Sacrifice Phases of Tragedy as outlined by Northrop Frye

2. Drama • Literature written to be performed. • Mimetic—imitation of the human aspects

3. Tragedy • Original meaning— “goat song” • Tragedies according to Aristotle create a “catharsis” where audience purges negative feelings • Tragedy of Shakespeare usually focuses on the “tragic flaw” of the protagonist(s) which lead them to a bad end—usually but not always—death. • This is the “Wheel of Fortune” view, and the fall of the great man view of life • Northrop Frye views tragedy as an archetype of the sacrifice— “the hero must fall”, but it is a tragedy “that he/she falls.”

4. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy • Phase One • Heroic • The courageous innocent—full of dignity and often viewed as a “stag pulled down by wolves” • May be a “maligned woman who is proven to be innocent” Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale

5. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy • Phase Two • Heroic • Tragedy of innocence—usually involving youths • Loss of Innocence • The “green and gold world is brought low”— Eden • “children baffled by their first contact with an adult situation.”

6. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy • Phase Three • Heroic • Quest theme—tragedy is in the failure of protagonist to succeed or complete the achievement—loss of the path • Usually at the end of a protagonist’s life.

7. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy • Phase Four • Heroic/Ironic • Fall of the hero through hubris • Innocence to experience through fall—moves to the adult world

8. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy • Phase 5 • Ironic/Heroic • Sets irony by putting characters in “lower state of freedom than the audience.” • Like Phase 2, but set not in the world of innocence but in the world of experience-adult context—not the world of innocence • Tragedy of “lost direction or lack of knowledge” • Troilus and Criseyde

9. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy • Phase 6 • Fully ironic—a world of shock and horror • Not just one or two scenes, but entirety of the story is shocking, terrifying or horrifying on a philosophical, ideological or spiritual level. • “Hero” is too humiliated or in too much pain to be truly heroic—More of an anti-hero or “villainous hero” • Ritual in punishments, mob mentality • Sacrificial symbolism of tragedy • Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

10. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy • The more ironic the tragedy, the more horrifying the action, the fates, the motivation—the phases also move from most innocent to least innocent—the transition is in Phase 4 where the action occurs completely in the “adult” or experienced world. • The tragedy isolates the protagonist and the family from society. In tragedies families are broken up, isolated from society and fall from grace. • Ironic phases place hero in position of less freedom than audience—fatalism, or interference of fate or other transcendent restraints—laws, attitudes, traditions.

11. Frye’s Phases of Tragedy • Comedy or comic relief act as a subplot, or underplot to contrast to the larger tragedy unfolding on the stage.

12. Works Consulted • Frye, Northrop. “Theory of Myths.” Anatomy of criticism: four essays. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957. 131—242. Print.