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archetype

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.02 sec.
archetype (är`kĭtīp') [Gr. arch=first, typos=mold], term whose earlier meaning, "original model," or "prototype," has been enlarged by C. G. Jung Jung, Carl Gustav (kärl gs`täf y
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 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 Frye, Northrop (nôr`thrəp), 1912–91, Canadian literary critic, b. Quebec.
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 and Maud Bodkin use the term archetype interchangeably with the term motif motif (mōtēf`), in literature, term that denotes the recurrent presence of certain character types, objects, settings, or situations
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, emphasizing that the role of these elements in great works of literature is to unite readers with otherwise dispersed cultures and eras.

archetype

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.


archetype
1. Psychoanal one of the inherited mental images postulated by Jung as the content of the collective unconscious
2. a constantly recurring symbol or motif in literature, painting, etc.

archetype [′är·ki‚tīp]
(evolution)
A hypothetical ancestral type conceptualized by eliminating all specialized character traits.


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If we suppose that the ancient progenitor, the archetype as it may be called, of all mammals, had its limbs constructed on the existing general pattern, for whatever purpose they served, we can at once perceive the plain signification of the homologous construction of the limbs throughout the whole class.
Tourists in Normandy, Brittany, Maine, and Anjou must all have seen in the capitals of those provinces many houses which resemble more or less that of the Cormons; for it is, in its way, an archetype of the burgher houses in that region of France, and it deserves a place in this history because it serves to explain manners and customs, and represents ideas.
What appears once in the atmosphere may appear often, and it was undoubtedly the archetype of that familiar ornament.
 
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