Archetypes reflect universal, primitive, and elemental patterns whose effective embodiment in a literary work evokes a profound response from the reader. They manifest as narrative designs, character types, images identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature, myths, dreams, and ritualized modes of social behavior. Anthropologist J. G. Frazer, in his work The Golden Bough, suggests that an archetype represents elemental patterns of myth and ritual recurring in legends and ceremonies of diverse cultures. Carl Jung sees archetypes as “primordial images” or “psychic residue” of repeated types of experiences in the lives of our ancient ancestors that present themselves in the “collective unconscious” of the human race and give rise to myth, religion, dream, fantasy, and literature.

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Mythos — a story or plot, either true or false. Myths involve rituals (prescribed forms of sacred ceremony), and each myth represents one story in a mythology. A mythology is a system of hereditary stories once believed as true, but which we no longer believe. Poets use myths and mythology as literary conventions and devices because they appeal to a common knowledge and emotional response. Often myths operate as metaphors. In most cases, poets choose their myths carefully and use them symbolically as archetypes for certain traits. Poets often use myths to synthesize the insights of the western culture and past with the new discoveries of philosophy and physical science.

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