Archetypes and the Process of Innovation in Modern Vietnamese Women’s Poetry

Abstract

Archetypes, understood as universal psychic structures embedded in the collective unconscious of humanity, have undergone significant transformations when entering the realm of modern literature—particularly in the landscape of contemporary Vietnamese poetry. This paper explores the interrelation between archetypal motifs and feminine sensibility in the works of Vietnamese female poets from the late twentieth to early twenty-first century. Grounded in Carl Jung’s archetypal theory, Hans Robert Jauss’s reception aesthetics, and critical methodologies including archetypal criticism, myth criticism, and the psychology of artistic creation, this study aims to elucidate the evolving significance of archetypes in modern poetic discourse. Focusing on a selection of recurring motifs—namely Water, Darkness, Dream, Mirror, and Mask—found in the poetry of several prominent female voices, this article argues that archetypes are not static structures but dynamic sources of transformative energy. In the hands of female poets, archetypes become instruments for reconfiguring traditional poetics, subverting gender stereotypes, and constructing nonlinear, polysemous narratives. These functions contribute to the shaping of feminist discourse and the redefinition of feminine identity in modern society through the poetic interplay of language, cultural perception, and symbolic imagination.