Black Voice News Online - Patterns Inside Poetry And Prose

Patterns Inside Poetry And Prose

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.

What constitutes patterns inside poetry and prose is the depiction of pre-logical thought structures of different powers--like primordial images, patterns, and situations which evoke startling similar feelings in both reader and author. This originated in the Sacred Myth of Ancient Africans. From studying the heavenly bodies, they thought the "Big Three" -- Hierograms, a fixed point in the universe, and all real things being represented by a number -- interacted and functionally integrated to form basic "blueprint" shapes and patterns. "Blueprints" based on Realism (concrete images without speculation or philosophical nuances) were useful for constructing temples (Eliade, The Sacred p25); for temple decorative paintings on wood or metal; for Afterlife guides on or in coffins, stelae, statues, tomb walls, and other monumental objects (Bunson, Egypt p143); and for Poetry and Prose. African Nature Archetypes were represented as emblems of the lion, the eagle, the snake, the hare, the tortoise, the spider, the whale, the vulture the laurel and olive branches, the rose, the lily, and the paradisal garden. African Theme Patterns include the initiation, the passage from innocence to experience, arduous quest or search, the pursuit of vengeance, the overcoming of difficult tasks, the descent into the underworld, the symbolic fertility rites, and the redemptive rituals.

In the Western world, Patterns (defined as that from which a copy, in its minutest particulars, is to be made) common to Poetry and Prose are largely attributable to Carl Jung's work on the Collective Unconscious in general and his idea of archetype--"arche" (original, primitive) plus "type" (form) in particular. After studying African works on the Collective Unconscious; then changing its spiritual direction into secular realms; and then proposing that primordial symbols common to all humans were present in dreams and myths, Jung called these symbols "Essence-Ideals" -- archetypes of the unconscious. This was so influential that its context was generally adopted by literary critics and thereafter spread into several individualized and fused patterns throughout the Western world. Hence, the present most fundamental Facts of Human Existence said to be archetypal theme patterns are birth, growing up, love, family and tribal life, dying, the magician, the feud, slavery, struggles between children and parents, and fraternal rivalry. Certain Character or Personality Patterns include the blood brother, wise grandparent, generous thief, duplicitous clergyman, the prostitute with a heart of gold, the rebel, the Don Juan (womanizer), the all-conquering hero, the braggadocio, the country bumpkin, the local boy who makes good, the self-made man/woman, the hunted man, the siren, the witch and "femme fatale", the villain, the traitor, the snob, the social climber, the guilt-ridden in search of expiation, the damsel in distress, the underdog, the person more sinned against than sinning, and the state of "pre-Fall" innocence.

Literary Archetypes--the remote ancestors rather than the immediate parent of some literary work-- are considered primordial images (also called dominants, imagos, mythological images, and behavior patterns), characters, or patterns of circumstances that recur throughout literature in all cultures and in all times. The anima, animus, and the shadow are the main types. Others are the earth mother, the hero, unity, magic, power, death and rebirth-i.e. those reflecting the natural cycle of seasons, sages, rebirth, demons, wild men, the elder wise men, the Creation Myth, the fall from Paradise, the Virgin Birth, the Sphinx, Hercules, Sun, conflict, and Prometheus.

website: www.jablifeskills.com

Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.