Jungian archetypes and the universal hero myth in the first book of The Faerie Queene

Jungian speculation about the evolutionary nature of the human psyche has been the self-conscious object of criticism for more than 20 years. Despite the inability of psychoanalysts to demonstrate with a quantitative certainty the animating force of the collective unconscious in human affairs, certain cultural phenomena which otherwise remain enigmatic, are elucidated upon the assumption of its existence. On this level, Jungian mythological theory serves as a convenient and creative tool for the unravelling of the mysteries of cultural symbology.