{"id":22008,"date":"2011-03-28T00:00:44","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T04:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=22008"},"modified":"2011-03-28T00:00:44","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T04:00:44","slug":"brian-graham-the-necessary-unity-of-opposites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/28\/brian-graham-the-necessary-unity-of-opposites\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Russell Graham: “The Necessary Unity of Opposites”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Brian is a graduate of the University of Glasgow. He has written extensively on Frye and has published a number of reviews of the <\/em>Collected Works. He is an assistant professor at Aalborg University in Denmark.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My monograph on Frye, The Necessary Unity of Opposites<\/a><\/em>, has just been released by the University of Toronto Press. The study deals with each of the main areas of Frye’s work: Blake’s poetry, secular literature, education and work, politics and Scripture. For Frye, the history of ideas is characterized by sets of opposing values which result in repeated cyclical movements in that history. However, Frye\u2019s thinking, I argue, can be thought of as a dialectical, “suprahistorical,” and – in the secular context – “post-partisan.”<\/p>\n

In each area of interest, Frye deals with the fact that opposing ideas represent a unity; that is, they are “in agreement” with one another. The nature of the “agreement” is different\u00a0 in each case: beauty and truth are “in agreement” because they both inhere in Blake\u2019s poetry and, more generally, secular literature; leisure and work are “in agreement” because, complementing one another, both must be incorporated into the life of the individual in society; freedom and equality are “in agreement” because the two are simultaneously achievable in society; belief and vision are “in agreement” because the individual must manifest both in his or her own identity. But, in each case, “agreement,” and therefore unity, characterizes the opposition.<\/p>\n

Throughout my study, I contend that it is the thinking of Blake which provides the inspiration for Frye\u2019s dialectical thinking. More specifically, it is Blake\u2019s conceptions of innocence and experience which provide the inspiration for Frye\u2019s characteristic mode of thought.<\/p>\n

In part, my study also attempts to explain the appeal of Frye through consideration of the relationship his thinking bears to what I call the ordinary history of ideas, with its political divisions. I conclude my study with a consideration of Frye\u2019s thought in relation to “end-of-history” theses, drawing out the implications of my argument that Frye\u2019s thinking can be described as “suprahistorical.”<\/p>\n

A study of Frye as a dialectical thinker. An examination of Frye as a thinker whose ideas can be described as “suprahistorical.” An investigation into the notion that Frye\u2019s thought is “post-partisan.” And a thorough exploration of the nature of Blake\u2019s influence on Frye. In writing The Necessary Unity of Opposites<\/em> I discovered that these four projects are one in the same, a much-needed fourfold study of Frye, which ideally does justice to each concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian is a graduate of the University of Glasgow. He has written extensively on Frye and has published a number of reviews of the Collected Works. He is an assistant professor at Aalborg University in Denmark. My monograph on Frye, The Necessary Unity of Opposites, has just been released by the University of Toronto Press. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[52,75,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frye-and-contemporary-scholarship","category-guest-bloggers","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBrian Russell Graham: "The Necessary Unity of Opposites" - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2011\/03\/28\/brian-graham-the-necessary-unity-of-opposites\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brian Russell Graham: "The Necessary Unity of Opposites" - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brian is a graduate of the University of Glasgow. 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