Archetipo versus anarchetipo

Abstract

In this paper, I try to coin a new concept: the anarchetype. The anarchetype is, from a formal point of view, a dissolute or exploded archetype. Generally speaking, archetypal literary works have a structure, a logos, a homogenous pattern which gives them a global meaning. This pattern could be inherited from the cultural tradition (O’Neill revisiting the Electra legend, James Joyce rewriting the Odyssey, etc.), or generated by the genre during its evolution (the Bildungsroman, etc.). Symmetrically, anarchetypal works or bodies of texts appear as anarchical and chaotic. They do not accept a central organizing meaning, they evolve on different contradictory levels. Using a cosmological metaphor, I would compare the archetype with a solar system, in which the planets harmoniously move around the central sun, while an anarchetype is similar to a galactic cloud of dust before its accretion in a solar system or resulting from the explosion of a supernova. The complementary terms archetype/anarchetype partially recall Deleuze’s opposition between “root” and “rhizomes”.