Assignment #2: Unique Literature from a Primitive Society

"People coming to Canada from, say, England in 1830 started writing in the conventions of English literature in 1830. They couldn't possibly have done anything else: they weren't primitives..." (p. 22)

I think this quote is really thought-provoking because Frye is implying that for a country or region to have a truly unique literature, it must be isolated from other sources of literature (or as Frye says, the inhabitants must be "primitives"). Usually when the word "primitive" is used to describe a group of people, it has a very negative connotation. However, here, Northrop Frye is saying that it is necessary to be primitives, to never have read or listened to any stories or poetry outside those found in your own community, to have a literary culture of your own. This, I find ironic since many of the discoveries that have identified us as an advanced society have been shared across the globe. For example, the printing press was invented by Gutenberg in what is now Germany, but has now been used internationally for a long time, helping us advance yet retain our history by making it easier to record and distribute facts and knowledge, as well as poetry and fiction. However, Frye is saying that real "literary discoveries" have to be thought of without any influence as opposed to other discoveries which usually rely on international collaboration for success.