{"id":6242,"date":"2009-12-20T11:33:33","date_gmt":"2009-12-20T15:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=6242"},"modified":"2009-12-20T11:33:33","modified_gmt":"2009-12-20T15:33:33","slug":"fryes-relevance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/","title":{"rendered":"Frye’s “Relevance”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"obama_hope\"<\/p>\n

Here is a recent comment<\/a> from Glenna Sloan:<\/p>\n

Frye and Bloom? It would never occur to me to consider them together. My interest in Frye\u2019s work is pragmatic and begins with the Anatomy<\/em> and other writings. The interest centers on his views on education which are immensely important to me and have been the basis of graduate courses in education that I have developed and taught at Queens College, CUNY for decades. At the Frye symposium in Ottawa in 2007 we heard papers about Frye and Bakhtin, Frye in relation to other scholars. Provacative, perhaps. But Frye is in a class by himself. Let\u2019s have more comment on what he had to say.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Earlier posts on this blog have recommended or suggested just the opposite of what Glenna is saying here: that we have to bring Frye into dialogue with current criticism and theory if he is to be made relevant again. But the term relevance simply means trendy, the idea that Frye\u2019s thought can only be vindicated by its relevance to contemporary concerns. So I tend to be very much of Glenna’s school of thought. It is in fact easy to make Frye relevant to contemporary concerns, since his theory of literature and culture already includes them as modes of criticism and theory that have\u2013to use a trendy term\u2013\u201dalways already\u201d been there. Much of contemporary criticism and theory are just recurrences of the same old fallacies. That is why the polemical introduction to Anatomy of Criticism<\/em> has never dated: the only thing that has changed are the proper names. Literary and cultural criticism keeps looking outside itself for inspiration, and we end up with a host of historians, sociologists, and psychologists manqu\u00e9s masquerading as literary critics and scholars.<\/p>\n

In a similar way, Frye always astonishes me by the way in which he has so much to say about current events today. Here, for example, is Frye on Obama:<\/p>\n

One diachronic illusion is the democratic election ritual: the pretence that the new leader will begin afresh. Actually, every leader inherits a situation; almost everything he can do is prescribed for him. The head of a great power, like the President of the U.S., has a considerable potential power of destruction, but relatively little chance for creativity or innovation. Again, many things are technologically feasible which will not be done without a sufficiently powerful economic or political compulsion to do them: hence the sense of science-fiction unreality in so many gazes into the future. (para. 359, Notebook 12; CW 9: 219)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a recent comment from Glenna Sloan: Frye and Bloom? It would never occur to me to consider them together. My interest in Frye\u2019s work is pragmatic and begins with the Anatomy and other writings. The interest centers on his views on education which are immensely important to me and have been the basis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frye-contemporary-criticism"],"yoast_head":"\nFrye's "Relevance" - 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\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frye's "Relevance" - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here is a recent comment from Glenna Sloan: Frye and Bloom? It would never occur to me to consider them together. My interest in Frye\u2019s work is pragmatic and begins with the Anatomy and other writings. The interest centers on his views on education which are immensely important to me and have been the basis […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-20T15:33:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"674\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joseph Adamson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joseph Adamson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Joseph Adamson\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/fde7d8c5162e1bd96a56bdcb01c94e6e\"},\"headline\":\"Frye’s “Relevance”\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-12-20T15:33:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/\"},\"wordCount\":426,\"commentCount\":1,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Frye & Contemporary Criticism\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/\",\"name\":\"Frye's \\\"Relevance\\\" - The Educated Imagination\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-12-20T15:33:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/fde7d8c5162e1bd96a56bdcb01c94e6e\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg\",\"width\":450,\"height\":674},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Frye’s “Relevance”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/\",\"name\":\"The Educated Imagination\",\"description\":\"A Website Dedicated to Northrop Frye\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/fde7d8c5162e1bd96a56bdcb01c94e6e\",\"name\":\"Joseph Adamson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b94e5cf65ba98825a6ede5250bd8c367a0dc853fa3cf3e59d0e8bea7c7bba458?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b94e5cf65ba98825a6ede5250bd8c367a0dc853fa3cf3e59d0e8bea7c7bba458?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b94e5cf65ba98825a6ede5250bd8c367a0dc853fa3cf3e59d0e8bea7c7bba458?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Joseph Adamson\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/author\/adamsonj\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Frye's \"Relevance\" - The Educated Imagination","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Frye's \"Relevance\" - The Educated Imagination","og_description":"Here is a recent comment from Glenna Sloan: Frye and Bloom? It would never occur to me to consider them together. My interest in Frye\u2019s work is pragmatic and begins with the Anatomy and other writings. The interest centers on his views on education which are immensely important to me and have been the basis […]","og_url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/","og_site_name":"The Educated Imagination","article_published_time":"2009-12-20T15:33:33+00:00","og_image":[{"width":450,"height":674,"url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Joseph Adamson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Joseph Adamson","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/"},"author":{"name":"Joseph Adamson","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/fde7d8c5162e1bd96a56bdcb01c94e6e"},"headline":"Frye’s “Relevance”","datePublished":"2009-12-20T15:33:33+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/"},"wordCount":426,"commentCount":1,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg","articleSection":["Frye & Contemporary Criticism"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/","name":"Frye's \"Relevance\" - The Educated Imagination","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg","datePublished":"2009-12-20T15:33:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/fde7d8c5162e1bd96a56bdcb01c94e6e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/12\/obama_hope.jpg","width":450,"height":674},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/12\/20\/fryes-relevance\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Frye’s “Relevance”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/","name":"The Educated Imagination","description":"A Website Dedicated to Northrop Frye","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/#\/schema\/person\/fde7d8c5162e1bd96a56bdcb01c94e6e","name":"Joseph Adamson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b94e5cf65ba98825a6ede5250bd8c367a0dc853fa3cf3e59d0e8bea7c7bba458?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b94e5cf65ba98825a6ede5250bd8c367a0dc853fa3cf3e59d0e8bea7c7bba458?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b94e5cf65ba98825a6ede5250bd8c367a0dc853fa3cf3e59d0e8bea7c7bba458?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Joseph Adamson"},"url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/author\/adamsonj\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}