The Function of Northrop Frye at the Present Time

Abstract

Revolutionary action, of whatever kind, leads to the dictatorship of one class, and the record of history seems clear that there is no quicker way to destroy the benefits of culture. If we attach our vision to the conception of ruler morality, we get Matthew Arnold's culture of barbarians; if we attach it to the conception of a proletariat we get Arnold's culture of the populace; if we attach it to any kind of bourgeois Utopia, we get the culture of philistinism. It seems better to get clear of all such conflicts, attaching ourselves to Arnold's other axiom that culture seeks to do away with classes. The ethical purpose of a liberal education is to liberate, which can only mean to make one capable of conceiving society as free, classless and urbane. No such society exists, which is one reason why a liberal education must be deeply concerned 'with works of imagination. The imaginative element in works of art lifts them clear of the bondage of history. Anything that emerges from the total experience of criticism to form part of a liberal education becomes, by virtue of that fact, part of the emancipated and humane community of culture, vwhatever its original reference. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism