A Critique on the Mythological-Archetypal Approach in Persian Coursebooks of Literary Criticism

Even though the archetypal approach of literary criticism can be used in the critique and analysis of literary-artistic texts, independently of mythological criticism; but in Persian coursebooks of literary criticism, has always been on the shadow of mythological criticism and most textbooks have failed to teach it. This article reviews the chapter of the mythological-archetypal approach of the most important coursebooks of critical theory that are taught in the field of Persian literature in various Iranian universities; that are, Literary Criticism by Abdolhossein Zarrinkoob, about the Literary Criticism by Abdolhossein Farzad, Literary Criticism by Sirous Shamisa, Principles and Methods of Literary Criticism by Nasrollah Emami, Literary Criticism: Literary Theories and Their Application in Persian Literature by Ali Taslimi, Critical Theory: an Interdisciplinary Coursebook by Hossein Payandeh. except Hossein Payandeh's book, which is an educational- efficient textbook for students and researchers of archetypal criticism, other works have insufficiencies and disadvantages in the archetypal criticism that prevent them from being the main source of teaching this literary criticism approach; including, archetypal criticism has been placed in the shadow of mythological criticism, summarizing it in the theories of Carl Jung and Northrop Frye, being unmethodical and not teaching the methods of mythological-archetypal criticism, false scientific statements, combination of Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian analytical psychology, non-existence of practical criticism in some coursebooks, selection of ineffective examples for teaching, Incorrect analysis of some literary texts, and infliction of concepts and symbols on analyzed texts.