The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye
“I feel separated and cut off from the world around me, but occasionally I've felt that it was really a part of me, and I hope I'll have that feeling again, and that next time it won't go away. That's a dim, misty outline of the story that's told so often, of how man once lived in a golden age or a garden of Eden or the Hesperides ... how that world was lost, and how we some day may be able to get it back again. ... This story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.” ― Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination
“I feel separated and cut off from the world around me, but occasionally I've felt that it was really a part of me, and I hope I'll have that feeling again, and that next time it won't go away. That's a dim, misty outline of the story that's told so often, of how man once lived in a golden age or a garden of Eden or the Hesperides ... how that world was lost, and how we some day may be able to get it back again. ... This story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.” ― Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination
4 comments:
i feel cut off from the human race but not the world... probably a psychotic element in there somewhere; it's just that that mankind seems so insane, the way they go about not taking care of things...
loss and reacquisition seems a little puerile to me, not to be too self-aggrandizing... i recall reading opinions of Frye that were not very complimentary...
Interesting quotation. Perhaps the fall and attempted return to the garden is something of a framework for a lot of fiction. Or perhaps the story just draws from the same psychological place as other literature does.
Mudpuddle,
I share your concern but find some solace in imaginative and inspiring literature.
Brian,
I think you may be close with your idea about the "same psychological place". Does it remind you of Jung's idea of the collective unconscious?
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