The Educated Imagination (Midland Book) by Northrop Frye


The Educated Imagination (Midland Book)
Title : The Educated Imagination (Midland Book)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0253200881
ISBN-10 : 9780253200884
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 159
Publication : First published January 1, 1963

Addressed to educators as well as the general reader, this important yet lively and readable book explores the value and uses of literature and its study in our scientific age, and offers a broad program for the teaching of literature in elementary and secondary schools.


The Educated Imagination (Midland Book) Reviews


  • Mohammad Ranjbari

    مطالعه ی این کتاب من را قانع کرد که تخیل واقعا فرهیخته است! در نهایت پی می بریم که جهان اسطوره ها چیزی جز کارکرد تاریخی ذهن در بستر زمانی که با کشف و تخیل همراه است، نیست!
    انسان هایی که توانسته اند برج بابل یا دیوار چین را بنا کنند و به راحتی بر این سختی فائق بیایند، به همان راحتی نیز آن را به انحطاط و ویرانی سپرده اند. مسالۀ جالبی در این میان رخ می دهد و آن تلاش انسان برای ردیابی هر نوع اسطوره ای ست برای چسباندن و توام کردن آن با حقایق!
    نورتروپ فرای با کیاست، مراحل نضج و شکل گیری اسطوره را بیان می کند. همه ی کلماتی که به کار می بریم به نوعی اسطوره هستند و مانند یک استعاره کم کم تازگی خود را از دست می دهند و تبدیل به کلمات معمولی می گردند.
    نیروی تمامی اسطوره ها در تخیل نهان است.

    تقریبا در همۀ اموری که بدانها دست می زنیم ترکیبی از عاطفه و هوش است که وارد عمل می شود و این ترکیب همان است که تخیلش می نامیم

    اسطوره ها زمانمند هستند و بر اساس خواست و میل انسان رفتار می کنند. حتی در عصر مدرنیته ای که در آن زندگی می کنیم اسطوره ها بی خبر از ما زایش دارند. ممکن است حتی یک آگهی تبلیغاتی «روغیلا سرخیلا فامیلا... تا مصرف یک نوع آدامس و تماشای یک سریال نیز ما را در احاطۀ اسطوره ها قرار دهد.

    آنچه در این بین زیباست غنا و آسودگی ناشی از ملاقات و بهره مندی از اسطوره است که انسان را انسان تر می کند

  • Amber Tucker

    I found you by chance, my darling, on one of those voracious raids I make on Chapters when lucky enough to get near a city with one. I was thinking nervously of starting university in a few months, altogether doubtful of my worthiness to pursue an English degree, and this caught my eye. I knew nothing, or at least believed I did – or was afraid to believe in my grasp of anything at all. I decided it was high time I Took an Interest In Literary Theory. (My, my, aren't we a gung-ho little English major?) So I picked you up, slim volume that you are, and read you over a series of happy, early-morning book-with-coffee sessions. I kept notes while I read through you, silly notes of what was truly a mind-stretching lecture so valuably committed to paper. Immature as I was, you shaped me and deserve the truth, wonderful little book. This tribute cannot be enough, but here is a selection of what I was thinking about you.

    "I am thus far hooked. I've read the first chapter through twice, and comprehended that much more for the extra reading. This is, hopefully, just what I need to reaffirm and elaborately develop my knowledge of how important literature... truly is to humankind, individual and social. It makes so much sense. 'The motive for metaphor ... is a desire to associate, and finally to identify, the human mind with that goes on outside it....' Yes, I know he's right, because I've experienced it. I am familiar with, amorous for that sense of connection with the entire world..."
    - - - -
    "It's such a basic statement, yet such a broad one... we use the imagination to create joy, and joy is created chiefly through the use of imagination (is basically what Frye is saying.... Note to self: look up D.H. Lawrence [after admiring an excerpt from "Song of a Man Who Has Come Through"].

    "This is helping me find new ways to view life and literature in their primary relation to each other... I've always had this sense that most of the 'great' stories are hopeless ones, and that if I lived a blessed and optimistic life, it seemed less and les likely that I could become a 'person of literature.' But how could I bear to live in a world of no happy endings at all – of sad, inevitable pattern?
    "Now I'm beginning to see, perhaps, another way. We write of our dark times, and of the hope that we may rise above them to be happy again.... the cycle Frye mentions is still happening, "of how man once lived in a golden age .. how that world is lost, and how we may some day be able to get it back again."
    -- - -
    "Funny how the stories a child invents are imaginary, while from a writer the same creations are deemed imaginative. Of course, when you think about it, the latter implies far more intention. If a child's games or tales hold symbolic elements that are also within literary convention ... The writer designs, specifically for the purpose of – what? Well, I guess that's what I'm reading this for.... Ah, and now he's connecting religion, science, politics –>allegories –>literature. Trés passionant, à moi.
    - - - -
    "So now I've got a good deal ahead of me. Yay. My ultimate goal? To decipher Finnegan's Wake. Without help. And right now? To read the Bible. Kind of makes me feel a tad nauseous. ... so I see that before I go for Paradise Lost I need to have a thorough understanding of the Bible and classic mythology. Damn, will I ever get to read these things? (I expect the same would go for The Iliad and The Odyssey ... god, don't know if I can even spell that....)"

    - - - - - - -

    "How can this talk have been given in 1962? It's today, it's me, it's us.

    "I'm breathing fast and my brain fears to think as fast as it wants to; the dangers of hyperspeed are formidable. Yet I cannot wait to start reading this book again.

    "It has everything I need right now, all that I've needed for months and cried about, literally and internally, for countless hours. The answers are here, for me: I hold them in this slim volume that was written forty-seven years ago and I could cry once again, with gratitude and relief and the transformative power of new-discovered insight.

    "I know where I went wrong, and why (or most of why ... we are, after all, complex beings – but I can see now what [names of several counsellors] and myself never saw before). I know what's been unproductive over my months of struggling with spirit and mind. And I am beginning to know what to do next.

    "This book has changed my life."

  • Atlee Northmore

    I really didn't mean to finish this all tonight. However, I felt a pull and understood what that pull was all about when I reached the end. I will definitely need to go back and look at my underlined sections (of which there were many). I started this book thinking I was going to learn about literary criticism and, instead, was forced to see the world I have been living in in a completely different way. A different language. I need to process all that I've read, but can't believe this is the first book I've read this year that actually brought me to tears. Frye has made me see that I have been "chasing status symbols" and that my imagination has been "starved and fed on shadows." An excellent work, and I can't wait to read more Northrop Frye this year!

  • Shannon

    Northrop Frye is a famous Canadian English literature professor who wrote quite a few books on literary theory, among other achievements. Several buildings at the University of Toronto have been named after him, and he's still a voice to be reckoned with in the field, though he died in 1991. In 1962 he took part in the CBC Massey Lectures with six lectures on "The Educated Imagination". This book is his six lectures, and if you're hoping for a review as intelligent as this book is, you've come to the wrong person.

    Frye tackles many questions which revolve around the importance of studying literature and an analysis of literature, studying it, and having an imagination. He posits three kinds of language within a language - that of ordinary conversation and self-expression; of conveying information in a practical sense; and of the imagination, i.e. literature. That's overly simplified and there's no doubt a better way of summing it up, but that's what I've come up with. Naturally, arguments build one upon the other, and I would be setting myself a horrendous task to try to describe them in brief. It's just not possible, as the lectures cover a great deal. You'd be better to read the book itself.

    Of all the lectures, I appreciated the last one the most, probably because it spoke to me the most. At one point he discusses freedom, and says "Nobody is capable of free speech unless he knows how to use language, and such knowledge is not a gift: it has to be learned and worked at." (p93) There can be no free speech in a mob, he says, only babble and grousing. What he doesn't say, but what he's saying, is that it's incredibly important for the lower classes to be well educated. With education comes not just the ability to express yourself articulately but to really see the world around you, and understand it. This is something that draws me to education, especially for the working class.

    The other thing I loved about this lecture was how he validates having and using our imaginations, not relegating them to the realm of fantasy or child's play. He reveals how we use our imaginations constantly, how necessary the imagination is to everything, and how "literature speaks the language of the imagination, and the study of literature is supposed to train and improve the imagination." (p82) Which I absolutely agree with; the lectures give very good insight into how important the imagination - and an educated imagination - is to us.

    At times his arguments read a little dated, but one in particular stands out, especially as it connects to the study of Dickens, which was what I was reading at the time, and helps me to understand why novels like
    A Week of This (Nathan Whitlock), which I read recently, don't have the same effect. "To bring anything really to life in literature," Frye says, "we can't be lifelike: we have to be literature-like." (p53) This is what he calls "writing badly", which Dickens does - it doesn't mean that he's a bad writer, but that he exaggerates and creates larger-than-life characters that feel more real than if they had been represented realistically. Reading Great Expectations you come across a great many of these characters, from Estella to Miss Havisham to the convict. Even Joe and Mrs Joe. They're almost like caricatures of themselves.

    When you meet such a character as Micawber in Dickens, you don't feel that there must have been a man Dickens knew who was exactly like this: you feel that there's a bit of Micawber in almost everybody you know, including yourself. Our impressions of human life are picked up one by one, and remain for most of us loose and disorganized. But we constantly find things in literature that suddenly co-ordinate and bring into focus a great many such impressions, and this is part of what Aristotle means by the typical or universal human event. (p35)

    Frye is a great proponent of classical literature and the necessity for studying the ancients, and then Shakespeare and Milton, and so on, as well as poetry. He has some good arguments that, re-worded, could work on the typical high school student. I'm not absolutely sure how much I agree, with his reasoning at least, but it's true that our culture and society is founded on such works and continues to influence them without our even realising or noticing - to be able to clearly see our world in such a way would take a lifetime of study. I don't think that the common way of throwing Macbeth in the faces of fifteen-year-olds works at all; in fact, it has a detrimental effect. The problem is that most English teachers don't get or like Shakespeare either - it's a cycle.

    While Frye is a terrible name-dropper and obviously knows - knew - his shit, he sometimes reads like a stuffy academic who annoyingly links everything back to the Bible. That's not a bad thing, except it comes across as a bit narrow - you get caught up in his arguments, which are well-expressed in general, and suckered into his way of thinking. The margins are littered with my comments and thoughts and counter-questions - this is a book you need to read armed with a pencil. There are lots of great quotes, and it's very readable, even if you don't have a background in English Lit. I recommend it to teachers and readers and the general populace alike, because it is very interesting and presents a solid argument for the validity of studying English lit - and writing literature in the first place - which I wish our politicians would appreciate.

  • Ehsan  Movahed

    این کتاب حاوی 6 گفتاره از نورتروپ فرای منتقد ادبی از نحله ی اسطوره ای . فرای قراره به این سوال پاسخ بده که مطالعه و آموزش ادبیات چه فایده ای برای انسان داره. عنوان گفتارها به ترتیب این هاست:

    انگیزه ی استعاره/ مدرسه ی آوازخوانی/ غولان در زمان/ کلیدهای سرزمین رویا/ قائمه های آدم/ پیشه ی بلاغت

    در حقیقت ایده ی فرای اینه که ادبیات باعث تخیل میشه و تخیل یعنی دنیایی که می خواهیم (خانه ای برای انسان)، نه آنچه به صورت خام مشاهده می کنیم. توی گفتارها این ایده پرداخت میشه با صحبت درباره ی ادبیات به عنوان عالی ترین سطح از سطوح ��ه گانه ی زبان، ماهیت استعاری زبان ادبی، رابطه ی ادبیات با واقعیت ، ادبیات با اسطوره، عرف و دنیای خود بسنده ی ادبیات و در نهایت نقش زبان ادبی در بالا بردن قدرت تخیل و تفکر از طریق تن ندادن به کلیشه های ز��ان

    جورج اورل در جایی از کتاب میگه: " تنها راهی که به وسیله ی آن می توان دوزخ واقعی در زمین ایجاد کرد، این است که گفتار خود را به صورت وراجی در بیاوریم "

    :و در نهایت این نقل قول از کتاب

    امیلی دیکنسون گله کرده است که همگان آن قدر در مقابل گفته هایش پرسیدند ((چی؟)) که بالاخره فکر گفتگو با افراد را به واقع رها کرد و خود را به" نوشتن یادداشت محدود ساخت. "

  • Miss Ravi

    آدم‌های خیالباف می‌دانند که تخیّل چه کیفیت معجزه‌واری دارد و ادبیات چطور به تخیّل مجال می‌دهد که مثل مادیان سرخ‌یالی بتازد و دشت‌های بی‌مرز ذهن را فتح کند.
    نورتروپ فرای می‌گوید که تخیّل زبانی برای ادبیات است. گفتاری برای خلق جهانی که ملموس اما متفاوت است. «موضع تخیّل در طرح کلی امور انسانی عبارت از ساختن الگوهای ممکن از تجربه‌های بشری است. در عالم تخیّل هر چه در مخیله بگنجد رواست». پس لازم نیست که جوانب احتیاط را رعایت کرد، هر چند که ادبیات همواره از طریق باورپذیر بودن و جلب نیروی همذات‌پنداری مخاطبانش به حوزه‌ای جذاب و دوست‌داشتنی تبدیل شده. بدون شک جهانی با آدم‌هایی فاقد قدرت تخیّل بی‌مایه و تحمل‌ناپذیر است.

  • Ginger Bensman

    These four brilliant, sequential, and tightly constructed essays make the case that the study of literature trains the imagination, and that the soul and ideals of any person, culture, or nation, are greatly impoverished in the absence of such training. Thought provoking and stimulating.

  • Marc-Antoine

    An insightful criticism of literature, had me nodding in agreement, saying humph out loud, or just plainly disagreeing, but what it did well was have me engaged.

  • Elijah Lamb

    Chapters 2-4 were a very fun time. Frye makes the wonderful point that all literature is in someway contributing to the grand story that every author wants to tell. I enjoyed this a lot. The last chapter is weirdly confusing and seems to contradict itself here or there. That being said, I would recommend this for a quick read on the value and necessity of having a well-formed imagination in order to thrive in our world.

  • Murat Dural

    Aslında çok rahat başladığım bir kitaptı ama bölümler ilerledikçe bir nebze daha zorlaştığını söyleyebilirim. Bu biraz da "Hayal Gücünü Eğitmek" isminin okuru çağıran mesaj ve bunun farklı algılanması ile bağlantılı. Konunun özü şu; yazmak isteyenlerin ilk okumalarda tercih etmemesi ama yazanların muhakkak bakması gereken bir kitap. Naçizane yazma çabasında biri olarak beni hem donattığını hem güldürdüğünü söyleyebilirim. Bu eseri Türkçe'ye katanlara teşekkür ediyorum.

  • Gabriela Ventura

    Esse pequeno livro é uma pérola, e fico muito feliz por ter sido traduzido.

    Ele reúne seis falas que o crítico literário e professor canadense proferiu durante o ciclo de Palestras Massey, em 1962. (Em tempo: para quem não conhece, The Massey Lectures acontecem desde 1961 e contam com acadêmicos, escritores e filósofos. Grande parte dos áudios completos podem ser encontrados no Youtube, e, fuçando um pouquinho, não é difícil achar as transcrições. Segue a lista geral para referência posterior, eu recomendo imensamente -
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massey_...)

    Ao longo das palestras, Northrop Frye tenta responder questões que se impôs durante seus anos como professor: "Para que serve o estudo de Literatura? Será que ele ajuda a pensar com mais clareza, ou a perceber com mais sensibilidade, ou a viver melhor?". Ele oferece uma série de respostas possíveis sem cair em utilitarismos baratos ou academicismos chatos. Ele consegue ser profundamente interessante para uma plateia de leigos, e só isso já faz com que eu o respeite imensamente.

    Eu posso passar muito tempo falando sobre como gosto do Frye, ou por que acho que todo mundo que se interessa por teoria e crítica literária, bem como pelo ensino de literatura (e por que não, pela literatura em si) deveria ler este livro. Mas vou deixar que ele fale por si, porque é claro que ele o faz bem melhor do que eu:

    "É muito comum pensar no estudo da Literatura, ou mesmo no estudo de uma língua, como uma espécie de métier elegante, uma questão de ser bom em gramática ou de manter as leituras em dia. Estou tentando mostrar que o assunto é um pouco mais sério do que isso. Não vejo separação possível entre o estudo da língua ou da literatura e a questão da liberdade de expressão, que todos sabemos ser fundamental para nossa sociedade. O âmbito da fala corriqueira, na minha visão, é um campo de batalha entre duas formas de discurso social: o discurso de uma turba e o discurso de uma sociedade livre. O da turba representa o clichê, a ideia pré-fabricada e o falatório automático, e leva-nos inevitavelmente da ilusão à histeria. (...) Liberdade de expressão, ademais, não é resmungar e reclamar que o país está um caos, e que todo político é corrupto, mentiroso, etc, etc. O resmungo nunca vai além de clichês dessa espécie, e o cinismo vago que eles exprimem é a atitude de quem anda procurando alguma turba a que se juntar.
    Liberdade nada tem a ver com a falta de exercício: ela é produto do exercício. Não se é livre para ir e vir a menos que se tenha aprendido a andar, e não se é livre para tocar piano a menos que se pratique. Ninguém é capaz de manifestar liberdade de expressão a menos que saiba usar a linguagem, e este conhecimento não é uma dádiva: precisa ser aprendido e trabalhado."

  • Carol Bakker

    Do you ever read a book, but can't recall how or why it landed on your TBR list? That is *not* the case with this book. Karen Glass in a blog post, The Best Books of 2008, introduced me to this book on December 31, 2008. Based on the other authors she referenced — Chinua Achebe, Andrea Levy, Wendell Berry, Jan Karon, George Eliot, P.G. Wodehouse, and Cormac McCarthy — and on her glowing summary, I moved The Educated Imagination to the top of my TBR.

    I should rave over this book. I'm disappointed with myself that I don't. Truth is, I have partially read it four times. Because the line of thinking builds on previous chapters, I've started from the beginning each time. The book, only 156 pages, is one that requires contemplation. The effort was rewarding enough for me to keep trying. For nine years it's glared at me and taunted my infidelity. It required tough love and a deadline: if I didn't finish it by 8/31/17 I was giving the book away.

    While I copied several quotes, I continue to struggle to give a short synopsis of his thoughts on literature. This time I read it slowly and carefully, but the main points could not find purchase on my slippery receptors.

    Here are some gems I gathered:

    If you say this talk is dry and dull, you're using figures associating it with bread and bread knives.

    Art begins as soon as "I don't like this" turns into "this is not the way I could imagine it."

    Literature keeps presenting the most vicious things to us as entertainment, but what it appeals to is not any pleasure in these things, but the exhilaration of standing apart from them and being able to see them for what they are because they aren't really happening.


    I could paint this on a wooden sign and hang it up in my house:

    It seems to be very difficult for many people to understand the reality and intensity of literary experience.

    I nodded my head in vigorous assent:

    You keep associating your literary experiences together: you're always being reminded of some other story you read or movie you saw or character that impressed you.

    I kept turning pages and finding my marks on the pages. Like my experience with Dickens' Hard Time, I didn't recognize I'd already finished this until I arrived at the last few pages. Oy.

  • Shaina Herrmann

    Five stars! I loved this. Seriously, I devoured it. I've heard Angelina Stanford quote him a number of times now so I had a fairly good idea of what to expect with this book. I was a little surprised at how quick and easy of a read it was!

  • gøkhan kiyici

    eğitimle, edebiyatla, tasarımla, düşünceyle, kelimelerle arası iyi olanların seveceği, geriye kalanlarınsa bu ilişkileri geliştirmek üzere okumasının yaygınlaşmasını dileyeceğim bir kitap.

  • Danny Druid

    I only had two problems with this brilliantly insightful book. The first is not the books fault but mine: I had read this book in bits and pieces during my travelling back to my hometown from college. This wasn't smart, as this very short and very intellectually rigorous book is truly meant to be very carefully and perhaps even all at once, since it is one cohesive argument all throughout.

    The second problem is not my own but rather a problem with Northrop Frye's vision. I know it is probably arrogant of me to criticize a scholar of the finest calibre and I am fully aware that Northrop Frye is infinitely smarter than me, but when has arrogance ever stopped me from doing anything? One of the important foundations of Northrop's argument is that there is a sort of pre-rational, mystical, and almost animistic view of the world that Literature seeks to return us to. The argument goes that in the past people felt that there was a deep connection between the outer world that we perceive and the "world" of our experience. However, really, the outer world is objective and impersonal and the inner world is totally subjective. There is no real harmony between the two, says Northrop.Now, perhaps it is the superstitious poet/madman in me that says this, but I do not think that this is the case. I think that this mystical inner/outer unitive vision that ancient people had was reality, and humanity's feverish obsession with literature shows not our desire to connect to our primitive but misguided selves but rather it shows our longing to return to reality. This is a small, tiny grievance with Northrop and his argument is brilliant nonetheless. I just feel we should give the part of ourselves that Northrop calls "primitive" but which is actually "intuitive" or "mystical" more credit.

    Northrop, and most of us, believe that we are egos with very involving but completely subjective (and therefore, meaningless) inner lives. We exist in an outer world that is objectively meaningless and full of essentially dead, impersonal things. This belief is itself the product of modern man's sick imagination which literature can both heal and reveal.

    As for that one beef I have with Northrop, everything else in this book is completely brilliant. Northrop's writing is incredibly lucid and easy to understand sen as he talks about the most profound and obscure topics. Northrop succeeds completely in arguing his case that the study of literature is as critical as studying math and science. Northrop's argument is even more important in the 21st century where people are willing to completely brush aside Literature, and the rest of the humanities, for the sake of the STEM fields.

    Overall, a commendable book (because he has succeeded at a noble task) that is worth re-reading again and again (I know I will be doing that myself, and I look forward to it!). I recommend this to every breathing human being.

  • Leandro Texeira

    Espetacular. É um livro necessário para todos, especialmente para quem é pai ou é responsável por educar uma criança.

  • Chelsea Medina

    A handy piece of literature to have in your back pocket before a lecture. I wouldn’t assign an entire reading to a class—the language may be tiresome for high schoolers. However, my copy is completely annotated and I will be pulling passages as supplemental work. WARNING: This was published in 1964 and the language is dated// could come off as offensive to some.

  • Ugur Kaya

    Kelimelere, bağlamlarına, biz onları kullandıktan sonra giyindiği, dönüştüğü şeylere, ona özel biçtiğimiz libaslara, burada ruhumuzun ve seciyemizin dönüştüğü, kimi zaman refleksle kimi zaman da hesaplı tepkilere dair bana göre bir Dostoyevski rahatsızlığı ve farkındalığıyla somutlaştırılmış hazine değerinde bir düşünceler toplamı bu kitap. Nurdan Gürbilek’in son röportajında serdettiği bir çok şeye Frye’da da tesadüf etmek Frye’ın metnini daha da katmanlaştırdı gözümde. Enfes.

  • Jordan Carlson

    I think this book was wonderful and in places I also think I had no idea what was going on. The last two chapters were especially good though, or helpful to me anyway. Very good on education, free speech and the use and importance of language and literature.

  • Sue Bridgwater

    Timelessly relevant.

  • diario_de_um_leitor_pjv

    O título original deste conjunto de conferências do canadiano Northrop Frye é "Educated Imagination". Neste sentido o cultivar e o desenvolve4 da imaginação é o elemento essencial da sua proposta analítica da (sua) teoria literária.

    O autor defende e potencia na sua argumentação - estruturalista q. b. - a necessidade de aprendizagem da língua e da linguagem como elemento fundamental para o treino, posterior, da imaginação e para a aprendizagem literária.

    O texto é claro que imaginação, aprendizagem e literatura que entrecruzam como elementos constitutivos da fruição do texto enquanto arte.

    Centrado especialmente no campo poético, e aí na anglofonia, o autor vai nos fornecendo interessantes pistas para debate posterior, o que torna a leitura agradável.

  • Leonardo Bruno

    Esplêndido! Não é apenas uma aula de literatura — ou teoria literária —, mas uma aula sobre a humanidade mesma.

  • Ashley

    The CBC Massey Lecture series is a national treasure. I have never read or listened to one that wasn't enlightening. This book provided me with a new appreciation for the value of fiction. Although I am not a student of the natural sciences, I consider myself to be far more of a literal (read: not creative or metaphorical) kind of thinker. The rigorous, academic study of literature is slightly foreign to me. I love books, but I didn't always have much appreciation for English.

    Frye explains how fiction is one of the means by which humans make sense of and relate to the world around them. My favourite insight from the lecture series is when Frye explains that literature is not about what took place, but what always takes place. This may seem obvious to those who do study literature, but it was eye-opening for me. A definite must-read for anyone who is skeptical of the value of studying literature.

  • Blossom

    I really enjoyed this book! It seems to abruptly end when there felt like more could have been said. The last couple chapters also got a bit political (talk of Communism and such) but perhaps it was to be expected; it was written in the '60s after all.

  • Nasar

    Our impressions of human life are picked up one by one and remain for most of us loose and disorganised. But we constantly find things in literature that suddenly coordinate and bring into focus a great many such impressions, and this is what Aristotle partly means by a typical or universal human event.

    Stylistically, it was pretty good. Great prose. But I'm not sure if I got much out of it as far as the content is concerned.

  • Haymone Neto

    É uma defesa ao mesmo tempo sóbria e apaixonada da importância do ensino da literatura para as sociedades democráticas, feita por um dos críticos literários mais importantes do século 20. Maravilhoso, até mesmo nos pontos em que discordo dele, como quando ele advoga pelo ensino literário da Bíblia nas escolas.

  • Esther

    If you have ever wondered if literature has any practical use, or heard someone ask, "what is the point of studying literature?" I recommend you pick up Frye's book. It is thoughtful and thorough and not an easy read, though Frye does his best to explain his position slowly and carefully. It requires thought and consideration on the part of the reader, but that is rewarded by the final chapter when he brings all the threads together in a powerful answer to the question of usefulness of reading and studying literature.