АРХЕТИПНИЯТ ОБРАЗ ЛОРЕЛАЙ И НЕГОВИТЕ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИИ: КРОС-КУЛТУРЕН АНАЛИЗ
THE ARCHETYPAL LITERATY CHARACTER LORELEI AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS: A CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS

Summary/Abstract: This study traces the transformations of the archetypal literary character Lorelei reflected in different fictional contexts: from the Greek Mythology through the German poetry to examples from the French and the Romanian literature. Using as main sources Homer’s epic “Odyssey”, Heinrich Heine’s ballad “Lorelei”, Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” and Ionel Teodoreanu’s novel “Lorelei”, the analysis aims to shed light on how Lorelei is transformed from a vaguely outlined mythologeme into a multilayered archetypal character. The focus is placed on the Romanian and French novels in which Lorelei and Esmeralda function as fictional textually constructed images of seduction, sorrow and tragic predestination. The analysis systematically decodes certain visual-symbolic particularities of each of the texts, comparatively considering the dynamics of the archetypal literary character Lorelei by tracing its function and mediation aspects manifested in different time sections and cultures. The approach draws on certain ideas from psychology. Based on the conclusions from decoding the texts, I have introduced an “Archetype Density Index” (ADI), named in this way for the purposes of this study. Essentially, it is a Lorelei-score, which as a laboratory instrument aims to objectivize the density and correspondence of each of the characters with one that has been selected as a model of compliance. The aim of the study is to find and implement a highly reliable working research mechanism which could be applied to other comparative analyses of fictional characters as well.

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