Kumar Shaurya Singh

1410110211

OUR : Mid-Term Report.

Goal: - To understand which theories and framework can be used to reveal the structure

of a literary text so as to understand the structure of literary text.

The structural skeleton that organizes the content of text in a specific form.

Method: - Attempt to understand the mythopoeic literary Universe of J.R.R. Tolkien by

taking all the literary text (collection of which is called Tolkien's Legendarium) and using

it as data to extract empirically observable units.

The literary units thus extracted corresponds to a literary value and an attempt

is made to understand such values using principles and framework provided by

Northrop Frye in his text - 'Anatomy of Criticism'

Therefore Primary texts ->

I. Works of J.R.R. Tolkien

1.

1. The Silmarillion

2. The Hobbit
 3. Unfinished Tales

4. Children of Hurin

5. Adventures of Tom Bombadil

6. The Lord of the Rings trilogy :-

i. The Fellowship of the Ring

ii. The Two Towers

iii. The Return of the King

II Northrop Frye :- Anatomy of Criticism

Secondary Text :- 'Fearful Symmetry' by Northrop Frye (An 'analysis' of William

Blake’s mythopoeic universe)

Roland Barthes -Structural Analysis of Narratives

Aristotle - Poetics

Vladmir Propp- Morphology of Folktale

C.G. Jung - Man and his symbol ( Sign, symbol and their use in

myths)

Joseph Campbell (Heroes with thousand face)

M.H. Abrahams Glossary of Literary Terms

Mid Term Report :- The Tools have been gathered.

Though many secondary text exit that illuminate various concepts, the primary task is to

understand the work of art using concepts and vocabulary developed by Northrop Frye.

The concepts thus understood are to be used as tools to dissect the work of art such

that its anatomy is brought out which can allow deeper observation of the form and its

relation with content.

The concepts developed by different theorist have complimentary as well as

contradictory elements. While the contradictions are always under contest, the

complimentary factors support and shape each other to yield a concept that has a wider

scope and applicability.

So the plurality of concepts are like tools and the literary text is site that

provides empirically observable units.

Content thus gathered, acts as evidence to go into the forge where with tools, the

hammer and anvil of thought, the concepts can be fine tuned.

This would allow a crystallized understanding of the Literary Value.

Tools :-

Aristotle in poetics lists 6 elements that go into the construction of a tragic play. These

are :-

Mythos (Plot), Ethos (Character and Setting), Dianoia (Thought), Melos (Melody;

Recurring rhythmic structure), Lexis (Diction; Verbal Pattern) and Opsis (Spectacle;

Theatre)
Though the concepts were developed in ancient greek, they are still valid and observed

in all tragic dramas and play.

The theories under consideration expound these elements in detail.

So, Barthes in his structural analysis of narratives distributes the narrative into three

levels :-

The level of Function

The level of Actants

The level of Narratives.

Here the level of function corresponds to the concept of mythos or plot which

corresponds to the analysis of function as done by Vladmir Propp in morphology of

folktale.

The primary task of function is to move the plot where movement enables a traversal

from beginning to middle to end.

The level of actants corresponds to the concept of ethos and deals with the role of

character where the functions are executed by the so called actants

The level of narrative deals with the rhetorics of the text and opens inquiry of aspects

like narrator, author, point of view of narration etc. (For example direct discourse, free

indirect, stream of consciousness etc). The text is analyzed at the level of discourse

where a word becomes a unit and sentence and paragraph are analyzed from their

syntactical point of view.

All of the aforementioned concepts are expounded in detail in Frye's Anatomy of

Criticism which contains four essay and where each essay deals with a specific kind of

criticism.

The first essay deals with historical criticism and introduces the vocabulary of

fictional modes and thematic modes. The literary texts are classified on the basis of

power of action that the characters exercise.

I.e Character Typology :- Mythical, Romantic, High Mimetic, Low Mimetic and

Ironic are the most important concepts. The fictional tendency is also emphasized and

which is observed on a dialectical pole of tragic and comic (The modes).

The interaction of character typology along with the tendency produces tragic mythic,

comic mythic; tragic romance, comic romance etc. Specific vocabulary further

illuminates the concepts.The concepts thus acquired will be used to analyze Tolkien's

world.

(An initial analysis reveals that the character typology does correspond to the

one that manifests in Tolkien's Universe)

The essay also introduces the thematic modes and is concerned with the relation of

the poet with the text and with the society.

The second essay deals with ethical criticism and expounds the theory of symbols.

The word as a unit here becomes either a sign (external) or a motif (internal). The

interaction of signs and motifs introduces various phases and these phases are
categorized by frye as the Literary phase, the descriptive phase, the formal phase, the

archetypal phase and the anagogic phase. The concepts developed here are crucial to

the understanding the form of text. The symbolic universe within the text is governed by

various factors and the way a symbol is related to other affects and shapes the form of

text itself.

The third essay is archetypal criticism and deals with the theory of myths. Affirming the

importance of recurrence in temporal and spatial fields, (the rhtyhm and pattern) the

cyclical motion of season is used as analogy to expound theories on genre and to

explain the structure of tragedy, comedy, romance and satire/irony. An analogy of music

theory is also used to expound the 6 phases in which all the four manifests. The role of

ritual, dream and desire in producing the ideal (wish fulfillment) and the nightmarish

(repugnance) enables the dialectical development of the apocalyptic and the demonic.

The fourth essay deals with rhetoric criticism and expounds on rhythm, meter, verbal

patterns and spectacle. The methods of classification between prose, verse, lyric,

drama etc.

All the four essay combined, along with other text provides a multitude of concepts that

exhibit unitary properties. These concepts have been understood and organized and

can now be put to practice.

The data shall be the literary universe of Tolkien and now armed and well equipped with

tools, a critical analysis of the field can be initiated. (The Quest)