Northrop Frye is a genius!I love the following quote, especially the final conclusive sentence.
However, I think that the first word (literature) is vital. If the term “pulp fiction” were substituted, I would recant my endorsement.
Literature keeps presenting the most vicious things to us as entertainment, but what it appeals to is not any pleasure in these things, but the exhilaration of standing apart from them and being able to see them for what they are because they aren't really happening. The more exposed we are to this, the less likely we are to find an unthinking pleasure in cruel or evil things.
-- Northrop Frye, in The Educated Imagination –
Have a great Friday!
If you were to substitute "reality television" for literature in that quote, the final sentence would have to be reversed.
ReplyDeleteGood point, kingmonkey.
ReplyDeleteI agree.