Northrop Frye's Notebooks for Anatomy of Critcism by Northrop Frye

Author:Northrop Frye [D. Denham, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2007-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

[30] 52

Now, if I could find a treatment of the ironic mode in Plato, other than the “new criticism” techniques of the Cratylus,36 I’d be all set. What about the Protagoras? Note that the literal thematic basis of irony, the poet as craftsman, is affirmed by Aristotle, & it is precisely this that is denied in the Republic. 37

[31] 1 and 3

One: the counterpoint of modes solves the pseudo-problem of the importance of content. The fallacy of judging art by its subject-matter, & the fallacy that subject-matter has no hierarchy of value in itself (Bentham’s principle that pushpin is as good as poetry38 is no more absurd than the principle that, say in painting, the Last Judgement & a dead duck on a table are on exactly the same level as pictorial subjects) are based on ignoring the middle principle, that central subjects may be approached directly, as in myth, or indirectly, as in realism. Three partly.

[32] 22

Two: Carlyle’s distinction of intrinsic & extrinsic symbols is one I have to absorb at some point.39 For one thing, apart from bogus mysteries, there are two kinds of genuine ones. There’s the mystery one can annihilate by a solution: the answered problem. This is a matter of extrinsic symbols or indicators: it consists either in discovering the referents of the indicator (the meaning of the cross on a church tower) or in discovering the correct indicators of a phenomenon (a mathematical formulation of a certain kind of physical behavior). The intrinsic symbol is the structure formed by a group of indicators, like a work of art or a personality, & it is a mystery that remains a mystery even when it is known (Fennell says that Tillich says this in the Revelation & Reason part of his Systematics, but I can’t find it),40 like, say, Lear or Macbeth. The thing is that any one set of explanations or interpretations or meanings we provide for a work of art merely establish[es] a set of extrinsic referents. The mystery is an essence or noumenon: it can never be directly known, but is intuited.41 Maybe this comes into the end of the Conclusion. Extrinsic symbol : archetype : : intrinsic symbol : work of art. A rumble of associations is not intuitive knowledge.42

[33] 1 and 4

The moral of One has always been that realistic plots are displaced myths. That must be brought out, & put beside its development in Four, which must have a large section on counterpoint in plot. I’ve discovered Humphry Clinker: Smollett has a conventional plot, but no one will suspect him of hankering after esoteric mythical allusiveness. Besides, the “soul” of his book is the last feature of it that any ordinary critic would pay any attention to. That’s what I mean about standing back. Well, katabasis, recognition & a whole set of displaced & projected identities are all there, & it’s an excellent blackboard piece: release of humors too. There is a displaced identity with his father, for instance, as the names show.

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