Assignment 2

"I'm not saying that there's nothing new in literature: i'm saying that everything is new and yet recognizably the same kind of thing as the old" 

I found this interpretation of the course of literature quite intriguing. Fry boldly states that literature is just a repetition of the same ideas in a different form. That every thing has been done in the literary world, now things can only change form, but they retain the same basic message. It seems like a very doom and gloom analysis. I disagree with this statement because of several things. This is a severe generalization, "the same kind of thing as the old". Also no two story's are exactly the same, it's the small details that make a story truly special. It's the little details that stick in your mind and occasionally pop into your head that makes a good story a great one. He can't just say there different but there the same because they aren't the same. Two fingerprints are not the same, they have a similar shape, texture, colour, but no two prints are identical. Northrope Fry has a lot of great ideas and insights that are fascinating, but this is not one of them.