David J. Burrows

I had bought this some years ago at a used bookstore, found it in a box when I was clearing the basement last year, and it sat quietly on my shelf until yesterday.

Basically, it’s a textbook of literary criticism based on and organized around Jungian psychoanalytic theory. There are about sixty pages of introduction to archetypal thinking (including essays by Eric Fromm, Northrup Fry and one by James Frazier that I’d never read) and then 400+ pages of poetry, essays, stories and tales illustrating the various patterns. And what a collection!

We’ve got the classics (Ovid, Vergil, Homer, numerous other Greeks, and more). Several biblical passages. A couple of Native American tales. Milton, e.e. cummings. Sylvia Plath. The Beatles (the complete lyrics to ‘Lady Madonna’). The complete text of the poem ‘Joe Hill’ which I don’t believe I’d ever seen all at once and correctly attributed. Harlan Ellison. Tennyson. Edgar Alan Poe. Hawthorne. Keats. James Joyce. Woody Guthrie. Franz Kafka.

This is a veritable treasure trove of literature. Not the kind of book you sit down and read cover to cover, but the kind of book that once discovered will not gather dust on your shelves.… (more)

Part 1 - Archetypal Theory
Part 2 - Cycle of Life
Part 3 - Archetypal Characters
Heroes and Antiheroes
Wise Fool
Devil Figure
Outcast
Double
Scapegoat
Temptress
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Section on "Divine Family: Mating with a Mortal" includes "Many legends and stories relate to the mating of a mortal with a deity. Through such a union, the mortal achieves something of the god-like, and the deity provides a knowledge or a child that partakes of divinity." From Ovid's Metamorphoses, "Europa" in which Jove seduces Europa, on the beaches of Sidon in Tyria. The Annunciation of Luke 1:26-35, in which Gabriel was sent from God to Nazareth in Galilee. The angel hails her, and says "Fear not, Mary, for thou has found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS." [The name is I/J - Ieus/Jove, son of -us, Ieusus, not a Judaic name]. The Angel explains that the "Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."… (more)