What are some transcendend/universal literary archetypes?
I mean figures like Hercules >confronts chaos/the unknown and is victorious >chosen hero that has to fullfill a set of tasks >examples; St. George comes to mind, or any dragon slayer figure, literally every 'chosen one' (even Harry Potter, who in the first part has to go through a set of challenges and there is even a Fluffy - Cerberus parallel)
Prometheus >rebellious against god(s)/authority >doesn't bow for noone even if it's his downfall >bringer of light motive >examples: Ahab from Moby Dick is certainly a promethian figure, as well as Kapaneus in Interno, who literally stands in the fiery rains of hell and curses god
maybe Oedipus as an archetype for someone who seeks knowledge/the truth even it is his downfall, Dr. Faust would come to mind as an example
mabye Hamlet? although I can't really think of an example right now
Jacob Nelson
>make an incredibly vague slot you can fit mythological characters into >call it an archetype Whoop-de-doop!
Christopher Price
The most universal of them all
Camden Harris
Oedipus is the archetype of hopelessly trying to avoid your fate.
Evan Reed
nice bait m8
Noah Peterson
read the hero with a thousand faces and then read criticism of campbell and stop making pseud threads
Luke Rivera
interesting timing OP. I just started reading pic related. It (obviously) explores the trickster archetype. >all tricksters are "on the road." They are lords of the in between. Trickster is kind of a boundary-crosser, both literally and metaphorically, also a denizen of the boundary. One common myth involves tricksters stealing the bait used by hunters. In this type of myth trickster subverts the boundary between hunter and prey by going in between the boundary. >Trickster is the mythic embodiment of ambiguity and ambivalence, doubleness and duplicity, contradiction and paradox. >trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer...he who dupes other and is always duped himself >The devil is an agent of evil, but trickster is amoral, not immoral. Last thing I want to say in this somewhat incoherent post (I did just start the book, after all) is that tricksters often are agents for mankind’s progression. Hermes steals Apollo’s cattle and gives them to humans; and op includes the Prometheus example. It appears to me that in both of these cases trickster crosses a boundary (between gods and humans) and in doing so contributes to the erasure of that boundary by making humans more godlike. Another example of the benevolence of tricksters comes from Native American mythology. The trickster is often the one who teaches humans how to fish, though I’m not sure what this has to do with crossing boundaries, or being the “lords of the in between”.
Very interesting post user, I'll check out the book as well. Question though; does the book go into why some cultures' tricksters are more out and out harmful (Loki), and some are more benevolent (Hermes/Mercury)?
Easton Hall
>Jungian archetypes are the same as tropes dreamt up by idiots on the internet Neck yourself my lad
Ethan Thomas
The OP asks about popular concepts in literature. A popular concept is a trope is an archetype is a device is a motif is a recurring idea. You can give it any name you want, the rose would smell as sweet
Brandon Carter
>trope Obnoxious word desu
Luis Martinez
Ulysses.
Also, Dante himself could be (and actually is) considered a literary archetype by many scholars
Ethan Gray
If it ever does, I haven't reached that point yet. As of right now I haven't gotten past trickster's "origin" so to speak: a being who needs to eat. One thing that's been said about Loki is that some of the earliest scholars of Norse mythology actually mistaked Loki for the devil.
Josiah Jones
You guys wanna know what I would self proclaim as an archetype so bad eh?
Carson Jones
The Trickster is an interesting one (Loki, Satan etc.) Ulysses, although he also could fit the "Trickster" type, I'd say he is quite the archetype for the figure of "the wandering jew" (in the biblical not racial context ofc.), "the flying dutchman" in the Wagner opera def. fits this category or even Nietzsches Zarathustra
Elijah Ward
The hero the rebel the sage. It's not even hard.
Brandon Powell
the healer the tank the DPS
Camden Howard
>heracles >chosen hero heracles wasn't chosen to do SHIT, he just btfo anything that was in his way. His life was notable because Hera fucking hated him for being Zeus's bastard.
