t "[ilf Northrop Frye should write an essay attacking archetypal criticism, the article would by definition be of much greater significance than an article by another scholar attack- ing the same approach" (Schaefer 5). The reason, of course, is that the approach is not something in- dependent of what Northrop Frye has previously said about it; indeed, in large part archetypal criticism is what Northrop Frye has said about it, and therefore anything he now says about it is not so much to be measured against an independent truth as it is to be regarded, at least potentially, as a new pronouncement of what the truth will hereafter be said to be
author-function at work: Frye is an author-concept and his work is a coherent whole--an Oeuvre.
This is absolutely fine for literary criticism and the humanities. The same is in practice true of the sciences--what Steven Hawking says about physics is more interesting than other people, especially if he reverses his previous claims. But in contrast to Frye, where a reversal is a change in the discursive practice (cf. Foucault), in the case of science, it should not be the case that hearing a "great man" reverse himself is more significant than hearing an unknown post-doc. The reversal should be evidence-based.