Definitions of “Archetype”

Archetype: A symbol, often referred to as a “primordial image” that is the basis for the symbolic meaning of myth. These symbols are universal in that they appear in myths in all ages and cultures, manifesting themselves in differing ways according to the specific culture where they originated. Archetypes are infinite, and a single example may have hundreds of different examples. For example, Jesus is a manifestation of the “savior” archetype.
http://www.argonautica.us/dictionary/index.htm

Archetype A term used to describe universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious responses in a reader. In literature, characters, images, and themes that symbolically embody universal meanings and basic human experiences, regardless of when or where they live, are considered archetypes. Common literary archetypes include stories of quests, initiations, scapegoats, descents to the underworld, and ascents to heaven.
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/glossary_a.htm

(är´ke tip´´) (KEY)  [Gr. arch=first, typos=mold], term whose earlier meaning, “original model,” or “prototype,” has been enlarged by C. G. Jung and by several contemporary literary critics. A Jungian archetype is a thought pattern that finds worldwide parallels, either in cultures (for example, the similarity of the ritual of Holy Communion in Europe with the tecqualo in ancient Mexico) or in individuals (a child’s concept of a parent as both heroic and tyrannic, superman and ogre). Jung believed that such archetypal images and ideas reside in the unconscious level of the mind of every human being and are inherited from the ancestors of the race. They form the substance of the collective unconscious. Literary critics such as Northrop Frye and Maud Bodkin use the term archetype interchangeably with the term motif, emphasizing that the role of these elements in great works of literature is to unite readers with otherwise dispersed cultures and eras.
http://bartleby.school.aol.com/65/ar/archetyp.html

Archetype: A universal model or prototype held in the collective unconscious and existing in literature in the form of recurring symbols or motifs. The term was first elaborated by Plato (e.g. Beauty, Truth) and more recently by psychologists Jung and Freud. Jung describes archetypes in myths as "mental forms whose presence cannot be explained by anything in the individual's own life and which seem to be aboriginal, innate, and inherited shapes of the human mind'. Archetypal characters and patterns of action or plot exist in literature, such as the stock characters of femme fatale and evil villain.
http://www.millenniumlibrary.co.uk/millib/reference/notes.php?entry=Archetype&fromdb=1

ARCHETYPE. (literature) The first, prototypical and quintessential expression of a theme, character type, style, genre, etc.
http://www.audiotheater.com/glossary.html

Ar´che`type (är"k?*t?p), n. 1. The original pattern or model of a work; or the model from which a thing is made or formed.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Archetype

Archetype: A symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of one's literary experience as a whole.
http://www.sil.org/~radneyr/humanities//litcrit/gloss.htm
 
 
 

Additional Online Assistance

Joseph Campbell’s Archetypes of the Hero’s Journey:
http://fc.bishops.com/~hornert/hero%27s%20journey%20handout.htm

The Archetypal Hero:
http://titan.sfasu.edu/~beenet/resources/heromain.html

Northrop Frye’s Archetypes of Literature (1951):
http://www.citadel.edu/faculty/leonard/Frye.html

The Dragon as Archetype:
http://www.angelfire.com/art/alara/dragons/ds.html

Student Thesis on the Archetypes in The Odyssey:
http://www.mum.edu/lit_dept/megan.shtml

A Xena Example:
http://whoosh.org/issue17/nowlan1.html

Scholarly Essay:
http://www.csudh.edu/hux/syllabi/573/one_1.html