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archetype

  (är'kĭ-tīp') pronunciation
n.
  1. An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype: “‘Frankenstein’ . . . ‘Dracula’ . . . ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ . . . the archetypes that have influenced all subsequent horror stories” (New York Times).
  2. An ideal example of a type; quintessence: an archetype of the successful entrepreneur.
  3. In Jungian psychology, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious.

[Latin archetypum, from Greek arkhetupon, from neuter of arkhetupos, original : arkhe-, arkhi-, archi- + tupos, model, stamp.]

archetypal ar'che·typ'al (-tī'pəl) or ar'che·typ'ic (-tĭp'ĭk) or ar'che·typ'i·cal adj.
archetypically ar'che·typ'i·cal·ly adv.

USAGE NOTE   The ch in archetype, and in other English words of Greek origin such as architect and chorus, represents a transliteration of Greek X (chi), and is usually pronounced like (k). In a recent survey, 94 percent of the Usage Panel indicated that they pronounce archetype (är'kĭ-tīp'), with a (k) sound, while 6 percent preferred the pronunciation (är'chĭ-tīp'), with a (ch) sound. Of those who preferred the traditional (k) pronunciation, 10 percent noted that the (ch) pronunciation was also acceptable. Only the traditional pronunciation is widely accepted as standard, however.


 
 
Thesaurus: archetype

noun

    A first form from which varieties arise or imitations are made: father, master, original, protoplast, prototype. See start/end.

 
Antonyms: archetype

n

Definition: typical example
Antonyms: atypical


 

archetype [ar‐ki‐typ], a symbol, theme, setting, or character‐type that recurs in different times and places in myth, literature, folklore, dreams, and rituals so frequently or prominently as to suggest (to certain speculative psychologists and critics) that it embodies some essential element of ‘universal’ human experience. Examples offered by the advocates of myth criticism include such recurrent symbols as the rose, the serpent, and the sun; common themes like love, death, and conflict; mythical settings like the paradisal garden; stock characters like the femme fatale, the hero, and the magician; and some basic patterns of action and plot such as the quest, the descent to the underworld, or the feud. The most fundamental of these patterns is often said to be that of death and rebirth, reflecting the natural cycle of the seasons: the Canadian critic Northrop Frye put forward an influential model of literature based on this proposition in Anatomy of Criticism (1957). Archetypal criticism originated in the early 20th century from the speculations of the British anthropologist J. G. Frazer in The Golden Bough (1890–1915)—a comparative study of mythologies—and from those of the Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung, who in the 1920s proposed that certain symbols in dreams and myths were residues of ancestral memory preserved in the collective unconscious. More recently, critics have been wary of the reductionism involved in the application of such unverified hypotheses to literary works, and more alert to the cultural differences that the archetypal approach often overlooks in its search for universals.

 

Primordial image, character, or pattern of circumstances that recurs throughout literature and thought consistently enough to be considered universal. Literary critics adopted the term from Carl Gustav Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. Because archetypes originate in pre-logical thought, they are held to evoke startlingly similar feelings in reader and author. Examples of archetypal symbols include the snake, whale, eagle, and vulture. An archetypal theme is the passage from innocence to experience; archetypal characters include the blood brother, rebel, wise grandparent, and prostitute with a heart of gold.

For more information on archetype, visit Britannica.com.

 

(Greek, first pattern) The original model whose nature determines how things are formed. In Plato the forms are at least sometimes archetypes. In many seventeenth-century philosophers, including Descartes and Locke, archetypes are the patterns or properties of things of which resemblances are formed in the mind, either by perception or by thought. In Berkely and Malebrance, archetypes become the original ideas in the mind of God, replicated in our own minds. According to Jung the collective unconscious contains archetypal images and symbols, ready to manifest themselves in one form or another, for instance in dreams. An ectype is the impression or copy of an archetype.

 
(är'kĭtīp') [Gr. arch=first, typos=mold], term whose earlier meaning, “original model,” or “prototype,” has been enlarged by C. G. Jung and by several contemporary literary critics. A Jungian archetype is a thought pattern that finds worldwide parallels, either in cultures (for example, the similarity of the ritual of Holy Communion in Europe with the tecqualo in ancient Mexico) or in individuals (a child's concept of a parent as both heroic and tyrannic, superman and ogre). Jung believed that such archetypal images and ideas reside in the unconscious level of the mind of every human being and are inherited from the ancestors of the race. They form the substance of the collective unconscious. Literary critics such as Northrop Frye and Maud Bodkin use the term archetype interchangeably with the term motif, emphasizing that the role of these elements in great works of literature is to unite readers with otherwise dispersed cultures and eras.


 
Psychoanalysis: Archetype
 (Analytical Psychology)

The scientific hypothesis of the archetype was proposed by Jung as an innate formal element that structures the psyche at its most basic levels. In itself psychoid and therefore anchored in reality beyond the psyche (in "spirit" or nous, the non-biological mind), the archetype is responsible for coordinating and organizing the psyche's homeostatic balance and its programs for development and maturation. Essentially there is one master archetype, the self, which defines the skeletal form of human wholeness.

The archetype itself is not available directly to experience—only its images and created patterns can become manifest and subject to experience by the psyche. These archetypal images are potentially unlimited in number and variety. They are embedded in the universal patterns of myth, in religious symbols and ideas, and in numinous experiences; they are also often represented in symbolic dreams and in altered states of consciousness. Within the psyche, archetypal images are linked to the (five) instinct groups, giving them direction and potential meaning. Like the archetype, the instincts are psychoid and rooted in reality beyond the psyche itself (in the physiological base of the psyche, the body). Archetypal images and instinctual impulses, united within the psyche, together make up the collective unconscious, the primordial psychosomatic basis of all psychic functioning.

Jung first used the term "archetype" in 1919. This was preceded by several years of speculation on primordial images and impersonal dominants. The implications of the archetypal hypothesis were developed by Jung himself and by his many students over subsequent decades in numerous case studies and investigations of myth, religion, and esoteric practices, especially alchemy. As the field of analytical psychology has grown and developed, the notion of the archetype and the role of archetypal images in psychological functioning and development have assumed a central role and have become the most distinctive feature of this school of psychoanalysis. Archetypal psychology, led by James Hillman, is a later offshoot of analytical psychology.

Jung himself found important connections between archetypal theory and the work of such ethologists as Konrad Lorenz who studied innate patterns of animal behavior and discovered innate releasing mechanisms. There are also parallels to be drawn between archetypal patterns and the innate mental schemas described in cognitive psychology. Recent findings of innate human patterns in neuropsychiatry and sociobiology also suggest confirmation of the hypothesis of the archetype. Some leading thinkers in analytical psychology have found close similarities between the theory of archetypal images and Kleinian notions of unconscious phantasy.

Criticisms of the archetypal hypothesis have come from many quarters. As an essentialist position, it has drawn fire from social constructionists who argue that human nature is infinitely malleable and defined more importantly by social and material conditions than by innate propensities. It has also drawn criticism from clinicians for whom the personal conflicts and traumas inflicted in childhood define the universe of therapeutic concern. For Jung and his adherents, however, the archetype has been seen as the source of healing and as the guide to potential wholeness of the individual.

Bibliography

Jung, Carl G. (1935b [1954]). Archetypes of the collective unconscious. Coll. Works (Vol. IX, Part I). London: Rout-ledge & Kegan Paul

Neumann, Erich. (1955). The great mother: An analysis of the archetype. London: Routledge.

Stein, Murray. (1996). Practicing wholeness. New York: Continuum.

Stevens, Anthony. (1982). Archetypes: A natural history of the self. London: Routledge.

—MURRAY STEIN

 
(ahr-ki-teyep)

An original model after which other similar things are patterned. In the psychology of Carl Jung, archetypes are the images, patterns, and symbols that rise out of the collective unconscious and appear in dreams, mythology, and fairy tales.

 
Word Tutor: archetype
pronunciation

IN BRIEF: The first one; a prototype.

pronunciation Carl Jung's theories were based on personality archetypes.

 
Wikipedia: archetype

The original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype. An archetype is a generic, idealized model of a person, object, or concept from which similar instances are derived, copied, patterned, or emulated. In psychology, an archetype is a model of a person, personality, or behavior. This article is about personality archetypes, as described in literature analysis and the study of the psyche.

In the analysis of personality, the term archetype is often broadly used to refer to

  1. a stereotype—personality type observed multiple times, especially an oversimplification of such a type; or
  2. an epitome—personality type exemplified, especially the "greatest" such example.
  3. a literary term to express details.

However, in a strict linguistic sense, an archetype is merely a defining example of a personality type. The accepted use of archetype is to refer to a generic version of a personality. In this sense "mother figure" can be considered an archetype and instances can be found in various female characters with distinct (non-generic) personalities.

Archetypes have been present in mythology and literature for hundreds of years. The use of archetypes to analyze personality was advanced by Carl Jung early in the 20th century. The value in using archetypal characters in fiction derives from the fact that a large group of people are able to unconsciously recognize the archetype, and thus the motivations, behind the character's behavior.

Etymology

The word archetype appeared in European texts as early as 1545.[1] It derives from the Latin noun archetypum via the Greek noun arkhetypon and adjective arkhetypos, meaning "first-moulded". The Greek roots are arkhe- ("first" or "original") + typos ("model", "type", "blow", "mark of a blow").

Pronunciation note: The "ch" in archetype is a transliteration of the Greek chi (χ) and is most commonly articulated in English as a "k".[2]

Jungian archetypes

Main article: Jungian archetypes

The concept of psychological archetypes was advanced by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, c. 1919. In Jung's psychological framework archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. A group of memories and interpretations associated with an archetype is a complex, e.g. a mother complex associated with the mother archetype. Jung treated the archetypes as psychological organs, analogous to physical ones in that both are morphological constructs that arose through evolution. [3]

Jung outlined four main archetypes:

  • The Self, the regulating center of the psyche and facilitator of individuation
  • The Shadow, the opposite of the ego image, often containing qualities that the ego does not identify with but possess nonetheless
  • The Anima, the feminine image in a man's psyche
  • The Animus, the masculine image in a woman's psyche

Although the number of archetypes is limitless, there are a few particularly notable, recurring archetypal images:

Archetypes in literature

Archetypes often appear in many forms of literature. Many archetypes in literature have their roots in mythology. A model for Neo, the nearly godlike hero of The Matrix, can be found in the Ancient Sumerian character, Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh's friend, Enkidu, is the archetypal sidekick character (powerful but uncivilized), which is paralleled by Robin Hood's Little John, Sundance from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Chewbacca in Star Wars. This is not to imply that the film directors borrowed directly from an Ancient Sumerian epic poem, but, rather, these archetypes are perpetuated as a typecasting, repeated again and again as characters in a story. Indeed, these remain part of our cultural memory and may be rooted in a collective unconscious, as Jung described it.

William Shakespeare is known for popularizing many archetypal characters that hold great social import such as Hamlet, the self-doubting hero and the initiation archetype with the three stages of separation, transformation, and return; Falstaff, the bawdy, rotund comic knight; Romeo and Juliet, the ill-fated ("star-crossed") lovers; Richard II, the hero who dies with honor; and many others. Although Shakespeare based many of his characters on existing archetypes from fables and myths (e.g., Romeo and Juliet on Pyramus and Thisbe), Shakespeare's characters stand out as original by their contrast against a complex, social literary landscape. For instance, in The Tempest, Shakespeare borrowed from a manuscript by William Strachey that detailed an actual shipwreck of the Virginia-bound 17th-century English sailing vessel Sea Venture in 1609 on the islands of Bermuda. Shakespeare also borrowed heavily from a speech by Medea in Ovid's Metamorphoses in writing Prospero's renunciative speech; nevertheless, the unique combination of these elements in the character of Prospero created a new archetype, that of the sage magician as a carefully plotting hero, quite distinct from the wizard-as-advisor archetype of Merlin or Gandalf (both of which may be derived from priesthood authority archetypes from the Bible such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, etc).

Certain common methods of character depiction employed in dramatic performance rely on the pre-existence of literary archetypes. Stock characters used in theatre or film are based on highly generic literary archetypes. A pastiche is an imitation of an archetype or prototype in order to pay homage to the original creator.

References

  • Jung, C. G., (1934–1954). The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious. (1981 2nd ed. Collected Works Vol.9 Part 1), Princeton, N.J.: Bollingen. ISBN 0-691-01833-2
  • Arrien, Angeles (1992). Signs Of Life: The Five Universal Shapes And How To Use Them. Sonoma, CA, USA: Arcus Publishing Company. ISBN 0-916955-10-9
  • Pearson, Carol (1989). The hero within: six archetypes we live by. San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-254862-x. 

Notes

  1. ^ Douglas Harper. Online Etymology Dictionary - Archetype.
  2. ^ Pronunciation Challenges: Confusions and Controversy.
  3. ^ Boeree, C. George. Carl Jung. Retrieved on 2006-03-09.

See also


 
Misspellings: archetype

Common misspelling(s) of archetype

  • archtype

 
Translations: Translations for: Archetype

Dansk (Danish)
n. - arketype, prototype, urform

Nederlands (Dutch)
archetype, prototype, steeds terugkerend thema (kunst)

Français (French)
n. - archétype, prototype

Deutsch (German)
n. - Prototyp, Archetyp, Urform

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αρχέτυπο

Italiano (Italian)
archetipo, prototipo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - arquétipo (m)

Русский (Russian)
архетип, прототип

Español (Spanish)
n. - prototipo, modelo, arquetipo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - urtyp, förebild

中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
原型

中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 原型

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 원형, 고태형(인간의 정신 내부에 존재하는 조상이 경험한 것의 흔적)

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 原型, 典型, 模範, 手本

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الطراز البدائي, النموذج الأصلي‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אבטיפוס‬


 
 

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