Give the Public What they Want? Northrop Frye’s ‘Anatomy of Criticism’

With it being the first month of 2024, it seems as good a time as any to consider for a moment the direction of this website going into the new year. For the past 8 months, I have endeavoured to post a Scribbling once a week (or thereabouts), which are usually inspired by a thought I had during my reading, watching and listening. They range from close textual analysis (see ‘Fantasies Fleeting in the Murk of Modernity’ or ‘Pozzo and Lucky, Control and Chaos‘) to more general, holistic literary concerns (‘The Need to See the World as a Story’ and ‘The Internal Shamanic Dance of Authorship’ spring to mind).

It is the latter type of Scribbling, that which attempts to tackle more exhaustive topics, that I feel is a particularly fruitful direction for the site to experiment in. Not to say that I will not also continue to scrutinise individual works— that, after all, was what much of my training in academia was based around, and I very much enjoy stripping back the complexity of a work in order to uncover an interpretation perhaps less-prodded than others. Indeed, I have plans for an entirely new vein of content on this site, dedicated precisely to illuminating the secrets of certain texts for a broader readership.

But in terms of a broader, unifying intention for this project, I have begun also to set my sights on works whose focus upon literature is not directed towards the minutiae of its components, but onto the movement as a whole. This last Christmas I was gifted Joseph Campbell’s seminal work ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’, a publication so synonymous with the field of universal literary criticism that it is in danger of becoming hackneyed.

Within its pages Campbell intwines his encyclopaedic knowledge of mythology with his insight into contemporary psychology, in order to effectively illustrate the common characteristics and motifs that exist within even the most seemingly alien of ancient tales. From the epics of Homer to the philosophies of the Buddha, Campbell masterfully outlines the omnipresent figure that unites them all— the archetypal hero, and the trials and tribulations they face.

This is not a Scribbling about Joseph Campbell— that I will save for a later date. But his ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ is a prime example of the kind of far-reaching, overarching exploration of writings that I am fascinated by. And that’s just the type of literary criticism, it so happens, that Canadian scholar Northrop Frye attempted to define in his ‘Anatomy of Criticism’.

‘Anatomy of Criticism’ is comprised of an introduction, four essays and a ‘Tentative Conclusion’, and in the foreword to my Princeton Classics edition (penned by literary historian David Damrosch) is lauded as ‘probably the single most influential work of literary theory ever written by a North American critic.’ Upon its very first page, Frye lays out exactly his intention for the work— to outline the ‘possibility of a synoptic view of the scope, theory, principles and techniques of literary criticism’.

In essence, rather than one that fixates on the small details of individual texts, or whose view is shuttered by the contemporary biases and tastes of the critic, Frye seeks a holistic, universal framework for literary theory that is systematic in its structure and scientific in its method.

First, an aside about my own relationship with this ‘most influential work’. Fresh out of university, I was eagerly seeking to continue my delving into the depths of literary history, and so was also intent on learning more about the biggest thinkers within the field. Therefore, it wasn’t long before I came across the prestigious (and certainly eye-catching) name of Northrop Frye— and from him, the ‘Anatomy’.

I quickly purchased the work for myself— and then just as quickly found that this is not a leisurely read. Frye is not an obtuse or inaccessible writer by any means, and his composition is fluent and entertaining enough for one to emerge from the essays with a passing comprehension of his main points. But his subject is so ambitious, so enormous, and so comprehensive, that to truly understand all the facets and nuances of his argument is no easy task.

As I have stated before, I began these Scribblings primarily as a way of working out certain complex issues that I come into contact with, through the structuring process of putting thoughts down onto (digital) paper. In this manner, then, I believe that this medium is precisely the perfect way that I can properly engage with the ‘Anatomy’— whilst I do not intend to simply lay out Frye’s points by rote (an exercise that I fear would be extensive and mind-numbingly dull) there are occasions when his writing provokes me into tangential avenues of thought, that could in turn flesh out a unique and engaging enough Scribbling.

One such instance occurred a few pages into Frye’s ‘Polemical Introduction’ (indeed, we have not even made it to the first essay yet). Here, the theorist lays the groundwork for the road ahead, and his opening gambit is to justify the role of the critic in literary appreciation as a whole. Far from being an embittered failed artist, or a parasite leeching off the talent of others, Frye argues that the critic is in fact necessarily the ‘final judge’ of a work’s value and meaning, more so even than the artist themselves. Existing in a conceptual space beyond public opinion, or the biases of the writer, Frye’s critic is able to methodically consider the work in question against a broader systematic backdrop of all preceding and contemporary works.

A particular target of this rather un-polemical polemic is that of the public critic, the predominating personae of the literary critic in history who should not be completely discredited, in Frye’s opinion, but should instead simply step aside for more serious, systematic criticism to take their place. Examples of this figure would be Matthew Arnold or William Hazlitt or Charles Lamb, who represent ‘the reading public at its most expert and judicious’.

This characterisation of Frye’s may sound flattering, but it also exposes their most fatal flaw— they are so embedded within the biases and sentiments of their times, that they are unable to achieve Frye’s desired timeless, synoptic overview of literary criticism. In other words, they are bound to the intuitive, inconsistent and unscientific ‘history of taste’, spending as much time degrading previously venerated texts with superficial and perennial judgements as they do lauding others.

For example, F.R. Leavis (not that I would ever imply he was unworthy of his prominence) spent much of his career deigning the value of works based on his own conception of a fixed framework of morals. But as Frye deftly points out in the ‘Anatomy’, any notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ seem to always depend on the biases of the critic themselves. Likewise, art that is proclaimed as truly ‘authentic’ tends to be simply ‘whatever [the critic] happens to like’. Their criticism certainly cannot be said to be a universally applicable one.

As such, because what the public wants is grounded largely in the sentiments (and the flaws) of the time, participants within this ‘history of taste’ are restricted from truly understanding the value of a work. Often, they will work simply to reinforce the contemporary zeitgeist, not to challenge it. An important part of Frye’s criticism of this type of criticism (a bona fide critic-ception) is his condemnation of the tendency to rally against the quality of certain canonical texts with each new epoch of literary theory— a warning that, I might add, feels more appropriate to this age than ever. Criticism should assess the value and meaning of a text from a purely objective and scientific level, instead of deliberately and arbitrarily erecting subjective hierarchies of value (“oh, Austen is far more enjoyable than Dickens”, or “Hardy does go on a bit, therefore Wells is generally the master craftsman”) which for Frye are always ‘based on a concealed social, moral, or intellectual analogy’.

Now, I have refrained from lifting direct quotes from the ‘Anatomy’ too liberally, for to do so would be to remove them from their argumentative context that Frye is so careful to weave. That would be a reductive exercise, and much of his insistence that only the systematic critic can determine the value of texts could, whilst convincing in the essays, come across as snobbish or aloof in isolation.

After all, arguing that the public cannot accurately discern literary value themselves is akin to claiming that ‘people don’t know what they want’. This in turn can quickly develop into ‘people don’t know what’s good for them’— and then the dreaded ‘we’re doing this for your own good!’, with all the dreadful implications of that.

In my eyes, the remedy to this risk is to entirely step back from any active attempts to influence the public and their taste. If a work is unleashed that the creator thinks is revolutionary, and could really usher in a new epoch of literary appreciation, then they should not have to enforce its value upon the public. If the work truly is of that merit, the general populace will be drawn to it themselves— there will be no need for some shrill, authoritarian artist to cudgel them into submission while screaming “You wouldn’t know good art if it hit you!”

Much less, it won’t require a figure of assumed qualification condemning an unreceptive public for their immorality, prejudice, or otherwise. Ethical blackmail is not a solid foundation for literary appreciation, either.

In the end, the difficulty with relying on public opinion to determine the merit of art is that a conscious effort is required to perceive the limitations of things that you love. We all entrench ourselves in what is comfortable, and when something else comes along to challenge it, we feel as if some part of our being is within the crosshairs. Many claim that they actively want a challenge, but they really don’t— often what is wished for is a challenge that merely reaffirms the suppositions they were already comfortable with, rather than shakes them to their very core. Building back up from the desolation of square one, after all, is a terrifying prospect. But the phoenix cannot be revived until it has been reduced to ash, as we know.

And often also, people do not know what they want because it is simply not there yet. Entering the 70s, would anyone have asked for a rock-opera epic with an acapella midsection? No, and yet Bohemian Rhapsody sat at number 1 in the charts for 14 weeks total. 20 years later, were the public clamouring for a children’s story about a boy wizard with a lightning scar? And a decade after that, who would’ve predicted a cinematic universe based around little-known comic-book characters would’ve held the box office rapt ever since?

Of course, this all begs the exciting question— what revolution is coming down the pipeline next, that the public has no idea is waiting for them?

Thank you for reading,