Northrup Frye | “Ethical Criticism: Theory of Symbols”

bbb

Northrup Frye’s “Ethical Criticism: Theory of Symbols”

bbb

Northrup Frye, literary scholar, university professor, and Methodist minister, was an eccentric genius whose perspectives on literature and literary criticism have excited angry waves of criticism from his peers, ranging from scathing commentary to elitist dismissal. In spite of the increasingly narrow and extreme nature of his own lens after the publication of Anatomy of Criticism, he made significant and important contributions to the discipline of literary criticism that continue to inspire reflection and study within the modern academic community.

bbb

One of his most eloquent commentaries appears in the second essay of Anatomy of Criticism, “Ethical Criticism: Theory of Symbols.” He introduces the idea that literary criticism must exist on multiple levels that correspond to the morphologies associated with the use of symbols (71).  The essay is built upon the premise of “polysemous” meaning, a term coined by Dante that, in literary criticism, means a piece of literature contains or can be subjected to many meanings (72). Frye writes:

The student must either admit the principle of polysemous meaning, or choose one of these groups [any one from a myriad of schools of literary criticism] and then try to prove that all the others are less legitimate. The former is the way of scholarship, and leads to the advancement of learning; the latter is the way of pedantry” (72).

bbb

This egalitarian notion of the nature of literary criticism, or what Frye contends the discipline should strive to make of itself, is the foundation of his essay on ethical criticism. Indeed, there is a deeply ethical humility in his position that invites cooperative study without the bitter contentions that seem to flourish between scholars in academic circles. It is unfortunate that Frye’s later work reveals a steady, extreme push toward the idea that all literature is built upon previous literary work and must, therefore, be viewed not only as a single work in its entirety, but as being composed by a single author. Just when he opens up a world of character and diversity in the field of criticism, he yanks it away to replace it with the monotony of intellectual and creative “oneness.”

bbb

However, Frye’s personal journey should not lessen the value or integrity of his initial claims: there is more than one way to read a book. His later-life conclusions are diametrically opposed to the assertions he makes in “Ethical Criticism.” Following his introduction of polysemous meaning, Frye notes that it “does not follow” that among the many schools of thought, some few can be isolated as valid critical methods, and those then arranged and contained in a single theory (72).

bbb

Although it is impossible to encapsulate, or even synopsize, his essay in the practical space of this annotation, some of the principles he enumerates to illustrate the strength of his argument for a polysemous perspective on literature are necessary to support these statements. Frye contends that the need for diversity in criticism proceeds from the fact that meaning, or dianoia, in literature is only one part of a greater whole (73). There exist two other elements with which scholars must contend: the narrative, or mythos, and the characterization, or ethos (73).  From these, one must consider the centripetal and centrifugal aspects of all three elements – intent of the author, interpretation of the reader, and critical analyses by scholars move both inward and outward of the fiction itself. In other words, meaning is drawn from associations beyond the scope of the literature, and from within it.

bbb

Frye’s thesis is extremely appealing to me, even though his treatment and definition of archetype is narrower than my own. The idea that literature is polysemous, and I must have known this before I encountered the word to describe it, is a concept that brings integrity to the field of literary criticism. It is a certainty that exclusionary positions on the relevance, meaning, and morphology of a literary work undermine themselves by generating suspicion and disbelief whenever difficulties or conflict with the methodologies arise. Frye’s egalitarian approach is an incomparable improvement to the discipline.

bbb