Northrop Frye’s Mythoi

The four mythoi are a cycle of stories emerging from fundamental human experience and desires. Northrop Frye characterizes each myth as an expression of the human response to experiences we might associate with the four seasons of the year, and each myth is informed by those qualities we associate with the seasons themselves.

Romance:

As a literary mode, romance evokes an awareness of an idealized world, one in which human desires can be fulfilled. The most common plot of romance is the hero’s quest. Broadly, this plot involves a perilous journey, a crucial struggle or test in which the hero proves himself, and the triumph and exaltation of the hero when the quest is completed. This mode most often assumes the existence or at least possibility of an idyllic world, and this world can be natural or achieved through human effort: the idyllic natural world is paradise, Eden, or the golden age; the achieved world may be seen as the product of utopian impulses which drive human activity. The central character of romance is the hero who is associated with spring, dawn, order, fertility, and youth; his adversary with winter, darkness, confusion, sterility and old age. Romance usually fulfills our desire for order and meaning and the typical romance deals with some sort of progress toward fulfillment—the released bride, the acquired treasure, the victory over an enemy. The achievement usually means some transformation of life or release from a threatening past, or the establishment of social, sexual, or personal identity. The romance mode comprises Epic and lyric poetry as well as fiction. We see it clearly in medieval lays as well as in certain 19^th and 20^th century novels, especially in the bildungsroman and works featuring questing heroes. In British literature, the romance mode includes such diverse works as Beowulf,, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  

Tragedy:

As a literary mode, tragedy evokes in us a sense of loss. We see in tragic literature an attempt to understand or at least depict a world that can defeat human greatness and aspirations. In fiction or in drama, tragedy is a pattern of action that shows us something we wish did not have to happen: the death of nature in autumn, the seemingly inevitable loss of innocence, or the cutting down of the hero. In its different guises, tragedy covers a spectrum ranging from the romantic to the ironic. In its heroic phases, the tragic hero is given great dignity, the source of which is usually his innocence or courage, and his loss or defeat seems undeserved. As tragedy moves through the spectrum, we see heroes who belong not to the world of innocence but to the world of experience. These tragic characters may be men or women of great stature, but are in some way responsible for the loss they experience and contribute to their own fall. At the spectrum’s most ironic end, tragedy conveys images of imprisonment or entrapment. The hero may be bewildered, unable to control his destiny, or even tortured. Its symbols may be prisons or madhouses. In British literature, tragedy certainly includes all of the great dramatic tragedy of the Renaissance and 17^th century—Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Webster—but it also may include lyric poems containing images of loss or defeat, such as Blake’s Songs of Experience as well as the poems of Browning, Arnold, and Hardy. We can sense the poet’s recognition of tragic inevitability in Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young,” in Hopkin’s “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child” and in Yeats’ “The Second Coming.”

Satire/Irony:

As a literary mode, irony is a form of expression that reverses the perception of the world found in romance. Irony tends to call our attention to the difference between the world we desire and the world we often experience. Satire is a species of irony. However, satire is sometimes distinguished from pure irony because instead of simply accepting the world as it exists, satire seeks to improve the world by mocking it. The satirist focuses on the flaws, mild or serious, displayed by humans, and, by making us laugh at them, encourages us to change. As a structure, satire is a parody of romance. Where romance is the mythical pattern of innocence, irony is the mythical pattern of experience, and we see in satire and irony the reversal of the romance quest for identity or recognition. The satirist also makes fun of the romance hero and his quest by suggesting a vast difference between pretension and performance. Satire also takes the conventions of romance and turns them on their head or parodies them, so we see the absurdity of the human condition rather than its inspiration. We see not the “paragon of animals,” but rather the “quintessence of dust.”

 Whereas satire mocks human nature or behavior in order to improve it, irony assumes no progress is possible. Satire is “militant irony,” but pure irony has no moral or political agenda and is often marked by a tone of bitter acceptance or detached indifference.

In English there is perhaps no greater satirist than Jonathan Swift, although satire and irony have both thrived in 20^th century British and American fiction.

Comedy:

As a literary mode, comedy reveals the irrepressible energy of the life force asserting itself against all the blocking forces that would restrict or contain it. Comedy assumes every human has a desire to assert his freedom, establish his individuality, and achieve his desires. Comedy, therefore, almost always involves some conflict between a comic hero- usually youthful- and a blocking force- usually rigid, old, or parental. The hero, seeking his freedom, fulfillment, or desire, must outwit, subvert, or defeat a blocking character who seeks to preserve some standard or condition associated with his authority or position. Often the blocking force itself is not just an individual but a repressive society obsessed with its own power or needs.

The different phases of comedy range from the ironic to the romantic. At one end, comedy seems close to satire. In its initial phases, the comic hero, although usually likeable, seems an inept, hapless, or perhaps unworthy character who fails to overcome the blocking force and fails to defeat the obsessed society. However, even in this character’s defeat we find some hope; because of his energy and passion we sense he will survive to try again. In subsequent phases, the hero will find more success, and he will draw on his cleverness, resourcefulness, wit, or perhaps his innocence to defeat the blocking force. In this later phase we see clearly the exaggerated sense of self-worth and the inflexibility of the blocking characters. They are usually backed by societal power, but their rigidity may render them vulnerable to the hero’s clever strategies. The comic plot is consequently often ingenious and complicated, and because it usually involves subverting established authority, it frequently appeals to younger people.

In its central phases, the comic plot turns on one of mans’ oldest stories: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl and wins her back. In these phases the rigid, obsessed society, often represented by a disapproving parent, stands between a young man and the object of his affection; in addition, he may have to overcome a wealthier rival with higher social status. The hero’s ultimate defeat of the blocking characters may involve their reformation or conversion, and his success results not only in his winning the girl, but in his engendering a new and freer society that tends to be much more inclusive than the old. At the end of these stories, we see a wedding, dance, feast, or some celebratory ritual heralding the new order.

In its most romantic phases, comedy is often less festive and more pensive. In these late stages, comedy conveys a feeling of moving from a lower world of confusion to an upper world of sense. In these plots we see groups detached from routine existence and an emphasis on the magical, the occult, or the marvelous. In these phases comedy may seem to merge with the romantic mode.

Early-stage comedies featuring hapless heroes are exemplified by P.G. Wodehouse’s Freddie Widgeon stories. The clever, successful hero is seen in some of Chaucer’s Tales, especially in the fabliaux (although in these he is often unscrupulous), and in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue. The central phase comedies, which are the most reliably formulaic, include almost any boy-meets-girl story, from Shakespeare to Shaw. Certainly A Room with a View provides a clear example with an interesting but not uncommon variation: the chief blocking force is the heroine herself (as is Katrina in Taming of the Shrew). In its subsequent phases, comedy includes works such as The Tempest and any number of poems whose theme is the transforming power of art or the human drive towards transcendence.