In Frye’s second lecture he states that “the effect of irony is to enable us to see over the head of a situation... and so to detach us, at least in imagination, from the world we’d prefer not to be involved with.” (pg. 31). I find it interesting how Northrop Frye symbolizes literature as a form of relief or escape from our daily lives. He seems to understand the fact that as humans we have our problems and we tend to reflect them in our literature. On page 31 he states “...the more advanced the civilization, the more literature seems to concern itself with purely human problems and conflicts”. What I don’t understand is how does the advanced civilization and the increase of literature involving human conflict correlate? Is he saying that our society is more likely to complain about our problems, we honestly have important issues worth discussing, or that we have become so preoccupied with ourselves, that is generally all we write about?
Jennie, at the end you say that perhaps we become so preoccupied with ourselves, thats all we write about. After reading that, I came to relize that it does seem like that. This goes for the point when you say as humans we have our problems and reflect them in our literature
ReplyDeleteYou pose some very thought-provoking and well-deserved questions. Another question that the text brings up is what exactly is societal development and how we can define it. Discussion on this topic would be interesting to pursue.
ReplyDelete-Yaseen