Mental Twinges

The following notes are from Part 3 of a 2012 CBC Ideas broadcast, The Ideas of Northrop Frye . Podcast time frames, shown in brackets, are approximate.

The following notes are from Part 2 of a 2012 CBC Ideas broadcast, The Ideas of Northrop Frye . Podcast time frames, shown in brackets, are approximate.

The following notes are from Part 1 of a 2012 CBC Ideas broadcast, The Ideas of Northrop Frye . Podcast time frames, shown in brackets, are approximate.

The following notes are from an article Elemenatal Teaching and Elemental Scholarship by Northrop Frye, published in PMLA, Vol. 79, No. 2 (May, 1964), pp. 11-18 and available from JSTOR .

In 1964 Frye wrote an article for the Modern Language Association (MLA) entitle d Elementary Teaching and Elementary Scholarship the final paragraph of which really struck home (emphasis added):

This is strictly my interpretation of what Frye has said in Creation and Recreation . (Notes: One , Two , Three ) We live in a world our culture has created and which we help to recreate every day. This world exists in two forms: as the world of our professed beliefs and as the world our acts continuously recreate. Our professed beliefs act as a mirror, we see what we choose to see, what society agrees on as being true. Occasionally we are jolted by a look behind the scenes and the consequences of our true beliefs, revealed by our actions, are made visible. Often it is art that allows us this glimpse into reality and when it ceases to do that, when it ceases to free what we have culturally repressed, it becomes merely decorative and not creative.

An outline and summary of Chapter 3 of Creation and Recreation by Northrup Frye. University of Toronto Press. 1980. Web. 2016.  See previous posts for outlines of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 . The numbering used below corresponds to paragraph placement within the chapter in the original text.

An outline and summary of Chapter 2 of Creation and Recreation by Northrup Frye. University of Toronto Press. 1980. Web. 2016.  See the previous post for Chapter 1. The numbering used below corresponds to paragraph placement within the chapter in the original text.

An outline and summary of Creation and Recreation by Northrup Frye. University of Toronto Press. 1980. Web. 2016. The numbering used below follows paragraph placement in the original text.

The book was first published in 1847; found it a little shocking in the portrayal of a middle of the road English family -- Agnes does a stint of work as a governess and finds a cold, indifferent mother, a domineering father and three wilfully unruly children whom she is not allowed to discipline. The oldest, a young boy, is nothing less than sadistic -- tearing baby birds apart in their nests, demanding complete obedience from everyone around him, including Agnes.

A novel, written in 1889, it is a boring book compared to Maupassant's short stories. The main character is Olivier Bertin, a society portrait artist in great demand by Parisian women, one of whom, a countess, Any de Guilleroy, becomes his life long mistress.  The characters go on and on about their little vanities and only examine themselves in a superficial manner. Their great love is disturbed by Any's realization of  Olivier's growing infatuation with Annette, Any's young daughter who is a more perfect copy of Any herself. Olivier finally admits, to himself, that he loves Annette but becomes morose when he catches sight of his name in an art review and realizes he is too old to win her over: [H]e saw his own name, and these words at the end of a sentence struck him like a blow of the fist full in the chest: "The old-fashioned art of Olivier Bertin. (191)

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,   Thou art not so unkind     As man’s ingratitude;   Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen,    Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:   Then, heigh-ho, the holly!     This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh     As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp,   Thy sting is not so sharp   As friend remembered not. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly...                                      William Shakespeare Source: Saylor.org

The level and fallibility of knowledge in Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado (1846) parallels the social class of the story's characters.