Archetypal Criticism: The SacrificePhases of Tragedy as outlined by Northrop Frye

Drama• Literature written to be performed.• Mimetic—imitation of the human aspects

Tragedy• Original meaning— “goat song”• Tragedies according to Aristotle create a

“catharsis” where audience purges negative feelings

• Tragedy of Shakespeare usually focuses on the “tragic flaw” of the protagonist(s) which lead them to a bad end—usually but not always—death.

• This is the “Wheel of Fortune” view, and the fall of the great man view of life

• Northrop Frye views tragedy as an archetype of the sacrifice— “the hero must fall”, but it is a tragedy “that he/she falls.”

Frye’s Phases of Tragedy• Phase One• Heroic• The courageous innocent—full of dignity and often

viewed as a “stag pulled down by wolves”• May be a “maligned woman who is proven to be

innocent” Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale

Frye’s Phases of Tragedy• Phase Two• Heroic• Tragedy of innocence—usually involving youths• Loss of Innocence• The “green and gold world is brought low”— Eden

• “children baffled by their first contact with an adult situation.”

Frye’s Phases of Tragedy• Phase Three• Heroic• Quest theme—tragedy is in the failure of

protagonist to succeed or complete the achievement—loss of the path

• Usually at the end of a protagonist’s life.

Frye’s Phases of Tragedy• Phase Four• Heroic/Ironic• Fall of the hero through hubris• Innocence to experience through fall—moves to

the adult world

Frye’s Phases of Tragedy• Phase 5• Ironic/Heroic• Sets irony by putting characters in “lower state of

freedom than the audience.”• Like Phase 2, but set not in the world of innocence

but in the world of experience-adult context—not the world of innocence

• Tragedy of “lost direction or lack of knowledge”• Troilus and Criseyde

Frye’s Phases of Tragedy• Phase 6• Fully ironic—a world of shock and horror• Not just one or two scenes, but entirety of the

story is shocking, terrifying or horrifying on a philosophical, ideological or spiritual level.

• “Hero” is too humiliated or in too much pain to be truly heroic—More of an anti-hero or “villainous hero”

• Ritual in punishments, mob mentality• Sacrificial symbolism of tragedy• Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Frye’s Phases of Tragedy• The more ironic the tragedy, the more horrifying the

action, the fates, the motivation—the phases also move from most innocent to least innocent—the transition is in Phase 4 where the action occurs completely in the “adult” or experienced world.

• The tragedy isolates the protagonist and the family from society. In tragedies families are broken up, isolated from society and fall from grace.

• Ironic phases place hero in position of less freedom than audience—fatalism, or interference of fate or other transcendent restraints—laws, attitudes, traditions.

Frye’s Phases of Tragedy• Comedy or comic relief act as a subplot, or

underplot to contrast to the larger tragedy unfolding on the stage.

Works Consulted• Frye, Northrop. “Theory of Myths.” Anatomy of

criticism: four essays. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957. 131—242. Print.