Combining the Stereotypical and the Archetypal: John Cawelti's Adventure, Mystery, and Romance

Cawelti's work was recommended to me several years ago in connection with a course on the classic detective novel I was then preparing. I found the chapters specifically related to mystery quite interesting; but far more fascinating in the long run were the theoretical introduction and first chapter, for they added a new slant to my own contemplation of narrative theory in general and of popular literature for both children and adults in particular. Subsequently, Cawelti's consideration of the relationship between popular "formulas" and their audiences has contributed to my own thinking about such apparently dissimilar works as the books in Bantam's Sweet Dream Romance series and Lois Lenski's regional novels.

The first chapter of Adventure, Mystery and Romance, in setting forth rather tentative theoretical concepts and examining them at length, is very persuasive in its implicit thesis that we have much to learn from a study of popular forms and their relationships to the societies in which they appear, and that what we learn will contribute not only to sociological theory, but to literary theory as well, helping us to examine not only popular works, but also those considered classic.

Of course, Cawelti is not alone these days in his scholarly and critical interest in popular literature: the number of books that have come out in the last ten years about the Gothic novel, for instance, attest to a widespread academic interest. From the very first, those interested in children's literature have studied and examined popular forms alongside the classics, but for the most part, only historically and sociologically, rather than formally. Only recently have I begun to notice studies that consider such works in any depth and in their formal relationships to a larger body of literature.

Cawelti begins by remarking that young children are attracted to stories at first because they find in them something new and different from their own experience, but that they soon begin to insist on the familiar, if not in subject matter, at least in form. He claims that the reading patterns of the major part of the adult population are similar in their adhesiveness to this same combination of new and old. As Cawelti notes, in later childhood, most people begin to develop an

interest in certain types of stories which have highly predictable structures that guarantee the fulfillment of conventional expectations: the detective story, the western, the romance, the spy story, and many other types. For many people such formulaic types make up by far the greater experience of literature. . . .these formulaic stories are artistic and cultural phenomena of tremendous importance.

What makes Cawelti so convincing to me is his ability to combine and relate two different concepts of literary formula. One concept of formula "denotes a conventional way of treating a specific theory or person," and tends toward the stereotypical: the other refers to "larger plot types," that may be seen as archetypal. The former is generally limited in its appearance to a "specific culture or period: the latter have tended to be popular in many different cultures at many different times."

Cawelti claims that "popular story patterns" are "embodiments of archetypal story forms in terms of specific cultural materials." The use of these specific cultural materials, especially to the extent that they are stereotypical, may account for the ephemeral nature of specific popular works; but Cawelti's combination of the two accounts for their widespread popularity at a particular moment in time, and for the success of such works in fulfilling primary needs for escape and relaxation.

Although modern critics tend to turn up their noses at the so-called "standardization" of formulaic literature, as Cawelti points out (and students of older literature often have discovered) such standardization is "in important ways, the essence of all literature. Standard conventions establish a common ground between writers and audiences." The particular pleasure, and Cawelti considers it an aesthetic pleasure, that comes from literary experiences of...