The Sovereign
- First attested
- 1990Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette introduced the fourfold framework in their 1990 book 'King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine'. It builds on Jungian foundations but creates a distinct modern map.
Moore and Gillette's King (or Queen) is the mature archetype that orders and blesses the realm.
The King (or Queen), here called the Sovereign, is the first of four archetypes of the mature masculine in Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette's King, Warrior, Magician, Lover (1990), a book of the mythopoetic men's movement, dedicated to Robert Bly. The authors say the King grows out of the boyhood Divine Child, is paired with the Magician in one of two dialectical oppositions, and underlies and includes the other three. They say the scheme builds on Jung's archetypal Self and goes beyond it; the Jungian scholar Darrell Dobson says Moore advanced archetypal theory with its two-poled shadow. The book concerns men, but its Preface says the structures it decodes are those of the human self, masculine and feminine.
Light
Moore and Gillette say the King in his fullness gives order, stability and calm, steadies chaotic emotion and behaviour, mediates vitality and joy, and blesses others by seeing them at their true worth, without envy.
Shadow
Moore and Gillette give the King two shadow poles: the Tyrant, who exploits and abuses others and hates new life, talent and beauty out of fear of his own weakness, and the Weakling, who lacks centredness and hands his inner King to someone else. Behind the Tyrant, they say, lies the Weakling.