By: Northrop Frye

1. Frye’s Thesis: “This story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think the framework of all literature”.

2. How does he come to this judgment? He goes back to the beginning.

Most Primitive LiteratureMYTH- Primitives try to explain world around them by identifying/associating human and non-human world.

back to desert island- we try to make the natural environment a human environment- one way they did this is by creating Gods (human form/characteristics with connection to non-human environment) when these beliefs cease to be beliefs, they become metaphors

METAPHORS • Metaphors are associative in nature- we

associate with the people who wrote myths, just as myths were a means to associate human and non-human worlds

• For example: The Florida Panthers, obviously no panthers on the team- it is a metaphor

LITERATURE• When myths become metaphors, they become

literature.

3. Beliefs and Traditions

• Gods take on human characteristics: boastful, mocking, trickster etc. these god types become characters in literature

For example: Chants (work songs, war songs, funeral laments etc.) become poetry (literary) forms. Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or

sounds. Poetry is thus in its origin panegyrical. The first rude songs of all nations appear to be a sort of brief historical notices, in a strain of tumid hyperbole, of the exploits and possessions of a few pre-eminent individuals. (wikepedia, www.thomaslovepeacock.net/FourAges.html)

Therefore…

All forms of literature have a pedigree…

• We can only write from what we’ve already experienced. Thus, literature is conventional: a “typical and socially accepted way of writing” (Moses etc.)

• Hence the reason why we have conventional types of stories: mysterious birth of hero, the quest, detective stories, women’s magazines, thrillers, westerns.

• For example: Mysterious birth of hero-Where do we see this today? Superheroes-superman, spiderman, xmen, harry potter etc.

• Women’s magazines-Cinderella story (convention)

Therefore, we can only write/understand/read

in an already existing literary way. (What does

God look like?) Reference to Canadian and

American literature-> still the same stories,

same framework.

4. Literature can only derive its

forms from itself-Canadian vs. American Literature

-baby analogy- descendants of family

5. Graves’ one story: The White Goddess

• Frye disagrees-Graves states that one female is at the of every story

• Any work of art needs repetition/recurrence- music: repeating beat/rhythm 1,2,3.

• Literature: human/non-human associations

Repeating cycles birth-> sun

death->water

rebirth->seasons, moon

The Hero with a 1000 Faces by Joseph Campbell, the Hero Cycle

6. Frye’s One Story…(thesis)• This story of “the loss and regaining of

identity is the framework of all literature”. The 4 story types: Comedy, Romance, Tragedy, Satire/Irony.

• Literature as a “whole”- we need repetition to construct work of art because we try to identify with natural world- we see/use “cycle” as literary principle.