Joseph Campell The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Carl Jung (can't remember a book right now). Northrop Frye has several books. There are also people in anthropology whose work gets used in literary theory a lot like Claude Levi-Strauss, Bronislaw Molinowski, and Clyde Kluckhhn (I don't think I am spelling that last name right). 

The Canadian critic Northrop Frye, in particular his Anatomy of Criticism

Carl Jung's books and these by the representative's of "his school", e.g. Luise von Franz.

i will be delighted to have online materials the more on the archetypes.

'Archetype and Signature' (1952) by Leslie Fiedler is important - his work in general, I would say. You could also look at D.H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious and Apocalypse.

Several of the suggestions that people have made--Fiedler, Eliade, and Campbell--are available in e-book format.  I'd suggest checking for the free reprints done by the University of California Library system.

I particularly like the suggestion provided by Mary Frances Rice, that would be a great start. I would add to that Curtius's admirable studies on classic and medieval literature; the brilliant study on realism and literary tradition since the bible by Auerbach's Mimesis; Todorov's study on Symbolist and interpretation; Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being, covering from Myth to modernity; the Russian formalists and folktales. Look at these with the didactic use of tropoi by Frye in mind. Use the bibliography of Frye and Curtius to expand your bibliography but narrow your new addition to your dissertation topic. Good luck.

In addition to the materials cited  above I suggest >the book entitled  "HUNTING AND GATHERING IN THE CORPORATE TRIBE Archetypes of the Corporate Culture by Keith Wilcock

and the book The Six Archetypes of Love From Orphan to Magician by Allan G. Hunter

Jung's The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious is the go-to text, along with Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces (as was already mentioned). You may also want to check out Pearson's Awakening the Heroes Within, which sheds light on some of the more convoluted Jungian archetypal theories. 

You can also  see The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler.

Salutacions,

Josefina

1. Fearful Symmetry   and  2.Anatomy of Criticism  -- both by Northrop Frye -- are the seminal works. Frye's WIkipedia entry has an excellent discussion with references

and then there's always Gilbert Durand's 'The Anthrpological Structures of the Imagination'.

I would also look at Mimesis   by Erich Auerbach. Wonderful work, eminently readable.

I agree with Jim Drummond. His recommendation is really good.

I think Northrop Frye's work The anatomy of criticism is a good bet. 

A book I found very helpful that is derived from Frye's work, but simpler, is Frank McConnell's Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature. As to online sources, and depending on what you're aiming to do, the giant wiki tvtropes.org might be of use. It started out focused on television programs but has expanded to include works and examples from many media.

Arthur Symons's The Symbolist Movement in Literature is clear and straightforward. The symbols of the French Symbolists are archetypes.  Actually, archetypes go back to the Greeks. The Platonic Ideas were archetypes.

I have advised many students in writing Ph.D. theses.  My suggestion is to narrow the focus of the dissertation so that the research and composition can be completed in a year.  In other words, if the student wants to write a thesis on archetypes, let him concentrate on a single author's use of them.

I agree with NELSON ORRINGER. TIGHT FOCUS.

Northrop Frye can't be left out here

Northrop Frye's 'Archetypes of Literature' is highly recommended, and also The Great Code. K.K. Ruthven's Myth will also help.

I am new to this country and had not realized that there were a whole page of posts, including about Northrop Frye, before I got my e-mail to answer. SO, apologies for my replications. I still recommend Auerbach's Mimesis as one of the best books of criticism ever. For an interesting counterpoint of a radically feminist nature, it miight be fun to compare this archetypal theory to the works of Helene Cixous. Here is a quote inclusive of "forms" which might be opposed to archeypal theory's nothing new under the sun bent:

Time and again I, too, have felt so full of luminous torrents that I could burst - burst with forms much more beautiful than those which are put up in frames and sold for a stinking fortune. And I, too, said nothing, showed nothing; I didn't open my mouth, I didn't repaint my half of the world. I was ashamed. I was afraid, and I swallowed my shame and my fear. I said to myself: You are mad! What's the meaning of these waves, these floods, these outbursts? Where is the ebullient, infinite woman who, immersed as she was in her naiveté, kept in the dark about herself, led into self-disdain by the great arm of parental-conjugal phallocentrism, hasn't been ashamed of her strength? Who, surprised and horrified by the fantastic tumult of her drives (for she was made to believe that a well-adjusted normal woman has a ... divine composure), hasn't accused herself of being a monster? Who, feeling a funny desire stirring inside her (to sing, to write, to dare to speak, in short, to bring out something new), hasn't thought she was sick? Well, her shameful sickness is that she resists death, that she makes trouble.”

― Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa

Dear Iyanda,

let me call your attention to Carl Gustav Jung's psychological archetypes of the unconscious.

Best,

Ferenc

Joseph Campbell’s books. I recommend his Power of Myth for its interview format. Very accessible. Theories of Mythology (Eric Csapo) is for advanced readers, but at the same time, wide-ranging in scope. Hope this helps.

Unfortunately, this book is published only in Russian: Meletinsky, E.M. On the Literary Archetypes (O Literaturnykh Arkhetipakh). — Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 1994.

Carl Gustav Jung's publications are fundamental in this field

Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater book " La tarea del héroe" ( Madrid: Taurus, 1981)

Also see:

Brunel, Pierre. Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes, and Archetypes. London: Routledge, 1993

Douglas, Mary. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. London: Barrie and Rockliffe, 1970

Hogan, Patrick Colm. The Mind and Its Stories: Narrative Universals and Human Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003

Matthews, Jack, ed. Archetypal Themes in the Modern Story. New York: St Martin's Press, 1973

Stevens, Anthony. Archetypes: A Natural History of the Self. New York: William Morrow, 1982

My first thought was Jung, and then Campbell (may the force be with you) and finally Vogler. (I think there is a lecture by Vogler on youtube.) I only know the major anglo-saxon ones, sorry. 

I am not surprised that nobody mentions Maud Bodkins' superb classic Archetypal patterns in poetry, that not only explains archetypes in poetry, but also makes clear why certain masterpieces are masterpieces. May I also suggest Chapter 2 of my own “Kubla Khan”—Poetic Structure, Hypnotic Quality and Cognitive Style: A Study in Mental, Vocal, and Critical Performance., where I apply her insights. 

Canadian schollar Northroph Frye is classic reference in the topic ( Anatomy of Criticism, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature, by instance). Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater's "La tarea del héroe", is also a great text.