On Frye's Literary Criticism

Northrop Frye is a literature critic of great report in 20th century. He is the originator of archetype theories and a critic of his own style. His theory is a single system, and is quoted and talked about by many other critics and scholars of the east and the west. His great contribution to the literature theory is evident.Northrop Frye thinks that the essence of literature is "mythos" and "mythos" is the basic structural principles and archetype mode of literature and the development of literature is the development of literature form, it is the recurrence of several certain modes and structures continuously, which makes literature an organism of self-sufficiency and automatic. In this organism, every works has relations with others. We should analyze every poem in this big background.Northrop Frye's notion of literature decides his notion of criticism. He thinks that literary criticism is an unattached subject, which is not offset or vassal of literature. We can't confuse it with other subjects. Criticism should study literature according to the concept ional frame which comes from inductive research to literature. Criticism should be systematic and internalized. Any works should be put in the whole literary system to study so that we can realize the relations among works, by which we can get a history field of vision. There are two contexts in criticism, interior and exterior. Only when the two sides are balanced, true criticism will come into being.Frye's concept "form" is different from that we rationally understand. Frye's "form" is a special form that include content in it. This "form" is both form and content. This two is an integrity mass, which is owing toarchetype's characteristics. Frye brought up two important conceptions: concern myth and liberty myth, the integrity of which constitutes the social context of literature. By this way, he gets his social criticism of literature. This social criticism is a buffer that balance two kinds of mythos, which shows a criticism of culture and sociality.The most influential Frye's thought is his theory and criticism of archetype. He introduced the archetype in Frazer's anthrop and Jung's psychology into literary criticism. Frye defined archetype as images that appeared repeatedly in works. In order to find archetype, we should "stand back", i.e. by macroscopic way, we can find archetype, find relations among works. So we can be conscious of the commonness and its evolvement on the whole. Frye conclude five modes and three image worlds from works, which replace and cycle, exist in the history of works.The notable trait of Frye's theory is its Macro-view and intersection of multi-subjects. He regard literature as a whole body and the aim of criticism is to construct a set of theories that is suitable for literatures. He always thinks the literary problems in the cultural frame, which add much cultural essence to his criticism. His transitional thoughts show in many ways. He not only spans different criticism schools but also breaks up the boundary of subject.There are some defections in Frye's theory and it is also contrary to reason somewhere. He neglects the interaction between literature and life , literature's peculiar aesthetic property, writer's creativity and abundance of text. His theory and criticism are contrary to reason in some sense. But this makes his theory full of tension and can be multi-coded, which attract more and more interpreters.