Northrop
Frye's
Theory
of
Archetypes:
Summer
=
Romances:
marked
by
extraordinarily
persistent
nostalgia,
and
a
search
for
some
kind
of
imaginative
golden
age
in
time
or
space.
Typically
have
virtuous
heroes
and
beautiful
heroines
who
represent
ideals
and
villains
that
threaten
their
ascendancy.
Plot:
The
common
plot
is
a
basic
quest
sequence:
Struggle:
perilous
journey
and
minor
adventures
Ritual
death:
crucial
struggle,
usually
a
battle
in
which
either
the
hero
or
his
foe,
or
both,
must
die
Recognition:
the
exaltation
of
the
hero
Characters:
In
romance
the
reader's
values
are
bound
up
with
hero
who
unequivocally
represents
what
is
supposed
to
be
right
and
virtuous.
If
the
tale
rises
to
the
level
of
myth,
the
hero
will
show
signs
of
divinity
and
the
enemy
will
have
demonic
qualities.
Hero
from
upper
world:
spring,
dawn,
order,
fertility,
vigor,
youth
Battle
in
our
world
against
an
Enemy
from
lower
world:
winter,
darkness,
confusion,
sterility,
moribund
life,
old
age
Eiron;
hero:
an
unequivocally
right
and
virtuous
character,
old
wise
man:
often
a
magician
who
effects
action
or
sybilline:
often
the
lady
for
whose
sake
or
at
whose
bidding
the
quest
is
performed
Alazon:
Enemy:
in
religious
tales
this
character
may
take
the
form
of
a
horrible
monster
that
represents
different
ideas
of
Satan;
Secular
story
=
the
enemy
may
be
guarding
a
hoard
of
gold,
which
may
represent
power
and
wisdom
Bomolochoi:
spirits
of
nature
(shy
nymph,
elusive
half--wild
creatures,
wild
man):
elude
moral
antithesis
because
they
are
partly
of
the
moral
neutrality
of
the
world
or
partly
of
the
world
of
mystery
that
is
never
seen;
These
characters
intensify
and
focus
the
romantic
mood
Many
characters
that
are
on
the
virtuous
side
in
romance
have
a
counterpart:
the
hero's
helper
is
balanced
by
the
traitor;
the
heroine,
by
siren
or
beautiful
witch;
and
the
dragon,
by
helpful
animals.
Jung
(dream
terms):
quest--romance
is
search
of
libido
or
desire
of
self--fulfillment
that
will
deliver
it
from
the
anxieties
of
reality;
antagonists
are
sinister
figures,
giants,
ogres,
witches
and
magicians
of
parental
origin
Frazer
(ritual
terms):
quest--romance
signifies
fertility
(food
and
drink,
bread
and
wine,
body
and
blood,
union
of
male
and
female)
over
wasteland
Phases
of
Romance
1.
Complete
innocence:
birth
of
the
hero,
an
event
which
is
commonly
associated
with
a
flood
or
water
imagery;
symbolizing
that
fertility
and
youth
is
the
real
wealth
2. Youthful
innocence
of
inexperience:
usually
presents
a
pastoral
world,
a
generally
pleasant
wooded
landscape
with
glades,
valleys,
etc;
story
tends
to
center
on
a
youthful
hero,
still
overshadowed
by
parents
+
surrounded
by
youthful
companions
3. Completion
of
an
ideal:
typical
quest
where
the
hero
goes
on
an
adventure
to
destroy
the
monster
+
evil
--
return
goodness
and
fertility
to
the
land
4.
Happy
society
resists
change:
The
hero's
society,
which
is
innocent,
is
assaulted
by
an
enemy,
which
is
experience,
but
it
withstands
+
survives
the
assault;
=
moral
allegory
or
morality
play
5.
Reflective
or
idyllic
view:
Here
experience
and
adventure
is
contemplated,
a
similar
world
as
that
in
the
second
phase
is
present,
but
with
a
knowledge
of
experience
that
did
not
previously
exist
6. Society
ceases
to
exist
beyond
contemplation:
These
are
tales
often
told
in
quotation
marks
by
one
individual
to
a
small
group;
there
is
a
coziness
to
this
type
of
tale
as
it
is
free
from
confrontation
and
has
a
relaxed
and
entertaining
tone
1.
HISTORY
OF
ROMANCE
12th
century
France
developed
courtly
culture
--
Eleanor
of
Aquitaine
+
her
daughter
Marie
de
Champange.
* e.g
poems
based
on
works
of
Marie
de
France
and
Chretian
de
Troues;
Le
Fresne
and
Lanval,
Yvain.
* The
chansons
de
geste,
Old
French
for
"songs
of
heroic
deeds
[or
lineages]
epic
poems
* Earliest
known
examples
date
from
the
late
11
+
early
12th
centuries,
nearly
a
hundred
years
before
the
emergence
of
the
lyric
poetry
of
the
trouveres
(troubadours)
and
the
earliest
verse
romances.
* Material
probably
taken
from
oral
tradition
+
works
of
court
poet,
supplied
by
travelling
'trouveres'
to
jongleurs
who
performed
them
--
circulated
widely
in
Europe:
* Waned
in
France
during
13th
century
but
grew
in
England
--
continued
to
be
read
/heard
in
Anglo--Norman,
esp
at
courtly
level,
but
began
to
appear
increasingly
in
English
8 English
texts
dates
1125--1300,
grew
to
36
between
1350
-1400
(excl.
Chaucer
and
Gower).
90%
of
13/14th
century
English
romances
derive
from
French
originals,
but
they
took
on
their
own
character
as
they
developed:
* English
poets
employed
forms
and
techniques
from
Latin
+
French
but
from
their
own
Anglo-
Saxon
predecessors,
particularly
the
alliterative
verse
seen
in
The
Awntyres.
* Like
all
redactors,
they
shaped
received
material
to
reflect
their
own
cultural
context/personal
interests
Social
connotations:
division
of
the
romance
corpus
into
'courtly',
'non--courtly'
or
'popular'
literature
adds
to
the
confusion
of
the
classification
of
Romance.
Theoretically,
romances
were
for
the
aristocracy
were
in
French,
and
those
for
the
middle
and
lower
classes
were
in
English:
* The
critical
proclivity
has
been
to
view
'courtly'
romance
as
superior
to
'non--courtly'
though
that
is
shifting
somewhat.
* 2nd
half
of
14th
cent.
French
has
become
largely
an
acquired
language
and
was
being
replaced
by
English
among
the
upper
classes,
evidence
that
Aristocrats
read
/heard
some
vernacular
literature.
* Chaucer
was
familiar
with
'popular'
works
--
his
+
some
other
romances
like
SGGK
are
'courtly'
in
artistry
--
for
the
nobility,
but
are
believed
to
have
trickled
down
the
social
scale
and
that
some
popular
works
rose
in
the
other
direction.
--
era
of
cross-currents
Audience:
complex
social
stratification
that
defies
the
imagined
3
estate
system
which,
in
reality,
encompasses
many
classes,
some
in
motion
like
the
bourgeoisie
/
yeomanry:
* Not
necessarily
a
single
group
=
audience
classification
associated
with
poem's
quality
as
well
its
reflection
of
class
/
interest
/
values
* Authors
identified
not
by
specific
person
but
level
education
/
literary
ability
/
social
class--
environment
* Original
authorship
obscured
by
scribal
overlays,
dialect
differences,
+
time
between
original
presentation
and
manuscript
production.
* As
literacy
grew
during
the
later
fourteenth
century,
spurred
greatly
by
desire
for
moral
edification
as
evidenced
by
manuscripts
that
contain
didactic
works
along
with
romances.
For
Northrop
Frye
(Anatomy
of
Criticism)
Romance
is
a
wish
fulfillment
or
Utopian
Fantasy
which
arises
at
the
transfiguration
of
the
world
of
everyday
reality,
whether
in
an
effort
to
restore
it
to
the
conditions
of
some
lost
Eden,
or
to
inaugurate
and
usher
in
some
new
and
ultimate
realm
fro,
which
morality
and
imperfections
have
been
effaced.
"The
quest-romance
is
the
search
of
the
libido
or
desiring
self
for
a
fulfillment
that
will
deliver
it
from
the
anxieties
of
reality
but
will
still
contain
that
reality"
(1957)
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