My brain has been FRYED

This is definately a book that deserves my second reading. I have to admit, I had to force my way through it because so much of it was over my head, it would have taken me more hours than I have time in the day for to fully understand everything he says. I thought that the first chapter was incredibly boring, but I was more interested in the second chapter. "Sequence and Mode" discusses the essence of language and how it is interpreted. "May I begin where I have so often begun, with the fact that when we read (or otherwise examine) a verbal structure, our attention is going in two directions at once. One direction is centipetal, trying to make sense of the words we are reading: the other is centrifugal, gathering up from memory the conventional meanings of teh words used in the world of language outside the work being read," (3). He further catagorizes language into four styles.

The first is descriptive, "The prestige of the words truth and facts have caused the descriptive mode of writing to be regarded as the most fundamental and essential mode of all, and the one that underlies all the others in hierarchical arrangements. The descriptive is the traditional literal meaning in which words have the function of transmitting the non-verbal," (5). This kind of language is like a newspaper, dictionary, or everyday verbal communication. "Short term descriptive statements have probably formed the bulk of human communication from the beginning of time," (7). It is used to literally depict reality. "The descriptive style minimizes the aspects of writing that call attention to the relations among the words, to what is peculiary verbal, or, in vulgar speech, "merely verbal." Abiguity, pun, multiple meanings within the same word, are avoided: nouns and verbs, at least ideally, have one meaning each, the one suggested by their relevance to the subject the book deals with. Figures of speech, metaphors and the like, are avoided also, except as examples or illustrations. The overriding criterion of descriptive writing is, speaking practically, objective truth," (5). "Descriptive writing, in contrast, attempts to escape from argument," (11).

The second mode is conceptual or dialectic. It differs from descriptive because "In conceptual writing the emphasis is on the power of words to co-ordinate verbal elements," (9). "The conceptual writer, like the descriptive one, is searching for whatever objective truth words can give him, and he is still appealing to the conscious mind and its sense of objectivity. But he is searching for it within the verbal order he is constructing, and this shows itself in an intense tightening up of the narrative movement.....The narrative becomes an argument," (9). This mode uses logic to make the reader think. "Two features of such writing may become, not a mere obstacle to meaning, but a positive and constructive force," and "when the relation to the concrete seems uncertain, conceptual writing is sometimes called "speculative," (10). This is theoretical writing.

The third mode is persuasive. The objective is to use the emotion of the writer and the audience to create action from the reader's reaction. It is also called rhetorical or ideologcial language. Frye uses Aristotle as an example. He refers to rhetoric as oratory. "This points to the fact that in oratory there must be a strong emphasis on figurative or purely verbal language, metaphor, allegory, simile, antithesis, and above all repetition," (17).

During this chapter, Frye lists his seven species of myth that "express the human bewilderment about why we are here adn where we are going, and include the myths of creation, of fall, of exodus and migration, of the destruction of teh human race in the past (deluge myths) or the future (apocalyptic myths), of redemption in some phase of life during or after this one, however "after" is interpreted. Such myths outline, as broadly as words can do, humanity's vision of its nature and destiny, its place in the universe, its sense both of inclusion in and exclusion from an infinitely bigger order," (23). The fourth mode of language is kyragmatic, or mythic and literary. There is no division between emotion and intellect.

In chapter II, "Concern and Myth," Frye explains how mythic and literary language is a social function. "Primary concerns may be considered in four main areas: food and drink, along with related bodily needs; sex; property (i.e. money, possessions, shelter, clothing, and everything that constitutes property in the sense of what is "proper" to one's life); liberty of movement. The general object of primary concern is expressed in teh Biblical phrase "life more abundantly," (42).

One quote that particularly interested me is on page 43. "All through history secondary concerns have taken precedence over primary ones. We want to live, but we go to war; we want freedom, but permit, in varying degrees of complacency, an immense amount of exploitation, of ourselves as well as of others; we want happiness, but allow most of our lives to go to waste." I liked this because it really sums up the reality of human folly and how ironically we live our lives. He continues by saying that we must realize that some primaries must take precedence or it will be the fall of mankind.

In chapter three, Frye discusses the psycological aspects of kerygmatic language. Kerygmatic means it is pertaining to preaching or gospel, such as the word of God. He compares Gods to metaphors that personify natural occurances like Zues being the God of lightning and Apollo being associated with the sun. These create individual ways of understanding yet are somehow unified. On page 83, Frye says "There is one conciousness that subjects itself to the text and understands, and another that, so to speak, overstands." This made me look at the role of the reader, and ultimately how my brain responds to text. To me, this is like when I read a whole page and not remember anything I have read. I am reading the words, but I am not understanding what is read.