Myth Criticism

Myth criticism (mythological criticism) is a methodological movement that investigates the mythological foundations of literature: the archetypes, ritual schemes, mythological motifs, and images that structure a work. Its sources are the 'ritual-mythological school' (James Frazer, 'The Golden Bough'), the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung with its doctrine of archetypes and the collective unconscious, and the comparative mythology of Joseph Campbell ('The Hero with a Thousand Faces,' with its concept of the 'monomyth'). Literary myth criticism was most fully developed by the Canadian scholar Northrop Frye in 'Anatomy of Criticism' (1957), which proposed a theory of archetypes, 'modes,' and seasonal myths (spring — comedy, summer — romance, autumn — tragedy, winter — irony/satire). Myth criticism is productive for analyzing works with a pronounced mythological substratum — from ancient epic to the modernist prose of James Joyce.