I’m working my way through Northrop Frye’s seminal work Anatomy of Criticism (1957). The books first essay has the title HISTORICAL CRITICISM and charts the change of literary modes over time. I’ll provide five takeaways from Frye’s scheme for tragic and comic modes then give five possible applications.
TAKEAWAYS
- Frye begins with Aristotle’s Poetics.
- The key difference among modes? Character capability, in both degree and kind.
- There are fives modes that, Frye implies, progress in a circle: myth, romance, high mimetic, low mimetic, and ironic.
- We should never offer an evaluation of any given mode because to do so would be to smuggle in a moral judgment disguised as a critical one.
- We are currently in the ironic mode, but literature is not at an end. First, literature written in the ironic mode begins to assume mythical aspects. Second, all great literature features modal counterpoint.
APPLICATIONS
- Worldviews affect literary genre. Christian cultures have a more clearly distinct line from myth to high mimetic because the distinction between God and man is so clear. Greek culture did not have a pronounced romantic mode.
- “Romantic” and “Realistic” are relative to the stage at which you find a particular work. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is realistic compared to Hamlet but romantic compared to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
- Frye seems to think that a character’s degree and the consequences of that degree have nothing to do with what happens to the character. This could be a purely inductive claim (“I’m not saying what literature SHOULD do but what it, in fact, does!”), but it smacks of Frye’s presuppositions. He’s already come out for abolishing evaluative claims (good or bad) as well as smuggled in philosophies (e.g. theology). He’s found this because he’s wanted to find it. Therefore, it might be interesting to compare Jewish/Christian literature where the cause/effect relationship relates to ethics and literature from other cultures.
- Just because I’m advocating for moral and aesthetic judgment doesn’t mean I don’t see Frye’s point. You can’t judge a romance by the requirements of a low mimetic tragedy. “With the same measure you use, it will be given unto you.”
- One experiment with how a story arc translates through the modes…
- MYTH (not in the sense of fiction, but in mode): Christ on the cross forsaken by his father
- ROMANCE: Sir Kay and Sir Ector in the Arthurian romances
- HIGH MIMETIC: Hamlet and his father in Hamlet
- LOW MIMETIC: Huck Finn and his father
- IRONIC: I’m not sure…
On the other hand I can start from the bottom and work up…
- IRONIC: R. Duke and Dr. Gonzo from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- LOW MIMETIC: Huck and Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- HIGH MIMETIC: ?????
- ROMANCE: Abraham and Isaac
- MYTH: ????????
The former all detail tragic separations between a father and son. The latter are all journeys out into the desert that resonate with each other.
Experiments in Criticism 