I thought that the main points I understood from 'The Singing School' were eyeopeners. When I first read the following sentence; "This story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature"(30), I was not only surprised by this statement and somewhat skeptical about its validity, but also determined to find a loophole in it. I was also not just going to willingly accept the fact that "popular literature... is always highly conventionalized" (21), especially because the word 'always' is an extremely powerful one. Not that I do not appreciate his academic merit, but with all due respect, I believe that Frye was wrong if he thought that he could just stick a statement like that in a lecture and expect one to believe it on a whim. I can honestly say that I have spent over half an hour trying to come up with something but Herman Northrop Frye prevails. I went through a mental list of books I have read, from 'The Prince and the Pauper' by Mark Twain to William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray's 'Walter the Farting Dog', and, like magic, every one I went over managed to fit into the framework that Frye suggested.
So congratulations to Mr.Frye, because his description of literature as being conventionalized and his insight into the "loss and regaining of identity"(30) as the basis of this convention, is truly profound.
P.S. If you have not read 'Walter the Farting Dog', today is your day! I found a video of someone reading it aloud on YouTube because I needed a refresher when looking into this matter. Enjoy!
I completely agree with this- I too disagreed with this statement immediately because I didn't see how all books could have one common theme. However, once I thought about it, everyone is constantly searching for their own identity. Also, in a way everyone has lost something- even their sense of who they are is constantly changing and leads to them searching for their own identity.
ReplyDeleteP.s. thanks for the video!