It is out of the tension between concern and freedom that glimpses of a third order of experience emerge, of a world that may not exist but completes existence, the world of the definitive experience that poetry urges us to have but which we never quite get.
The Critical Path: An Essay on the Social Context of Literary Criticism (1971), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.
Concern is the response of the adult citizen to genuine social problems. Anxiety is based on the desire to exclude or subordinate, to preserve the values or benefits of society for the group of right people who know the right answers.
“Address on Receiving the Royal Bank Award” (1978), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Once a myth of concern is recognized to be such, it becomes clear that you can’t express its truth without lying. Because you’re contradicting accepted truth with something which is going to be made true but isn’t true now.
Entry, Notebook 12 (1968–70), 237, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.
There has always been a practical distinction between what is important, like cathedrals, and what is necessary, like privies: in our day the important seems, possibly for the first time in history, to be becoming necessary as well.
“The Instruments of Mental Production” (1966), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Concerns, Primary and Secondary
Human beings are concerned beings, and it seems to me that there are two kinds of concern: primary and secondary. Primary concerns are such things as food, sex, property, and freedom of movement: concerns that we share with animals on a physical level. Secondary concerns include our political, religious, and other ideological loyalties.
The Double Vision (1991), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
I think mythology expresses the primary human concerns, and ideology the secondary and derivative ones.
Entry, Notebook 44 (1986–91), 6, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.
The most primary concern of all, breathing, is transformed into spirit, & the spiritual meaning of food & drink, of love, of security & shelter & the sense of home, all follow. The transition from material to spiritual, of course, is through the verbal: we don’t go into a Platonic intelligible world.
Entry, Notebook 44 (1986–91), 293, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.
Literature seems to me to revolve around what I call the primary concerns of humanity, those that have to do with freedom, love, and staying alive, along with the ironies of their frustration, as distinct from the secondary or ideological concerns of politics and religion, for which the direct verbal expression is expository rather than literary.
“Auguries of Experience” (1987), “The Secular Scripture” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976–1991 (2006), CW, 18.
The physical primary concerns of humanity, food, sex, possessions and freedom of movement, are elements in human life that we share with animals. It is the secondary concerns that are distinctly human, so if the twentieth century is an age in which primary concerns must again become primary, what this indicates is not an abolishing of secondary concerns but a renewed integration of humanity with nature.
“Fourth Variation: The Furnace,” Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (1990), CW, 26.
Primary concerns rest on platitudes so bald and obvious that one hesitates to list them: it is better to be fed than starving, better to be happy than miserable, better to be free than a slave, better to be healthy than sick. Secondary concerns arise through the consciousness of a social contract: loyalty to one’s religion or country or community, commitment to faith, sacrifice of cherished elements in life for the sake of what is regarded as a higher cause.
“Crime and Sin in the Bible” (1986), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
All through history primary concerns have had to give way to secondary ones. It is better to live than die; nevertheless we go to war. Freedom is better than bondage, but we accept an immense amount of exploitation, both of ourselves and of others. Perhaps, with our nuclear weapons and our pollution of air and water, we have reached the first stage in history in which primary concerns will have to become primary.
“Crime and Sin in the Bible” (1986), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
Secondary concern has to do with the structure and source of authority in society, with religious belief and political loyalties, with the desire of the privileged to keep their privileges and of the nonprivileged to get along as well as they can in that situation. I think the present age, with its threats of nuclear warfare and environmental pollution, is an age in which secondary concerns are rapidly dissolving.
“The Survival of Eros in Poetry” (1983), “The Secular Scripture” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976–1991 (2006), CW, 18.
Condensation
Condensation means the opposite movement [of displacement], where the similarities and associations of ordinary experience become metaphorical identities.
“First Variation: The Mountain,” Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (2008), CW, 26.
Conditioning
People robotize themselves to adjust to society & save trouble for themselves. Automatic conditioned reflex makes up I suppose 98 % of any normal life: if someone said 100 %, how could you refute him?
Entry, Notebook 48 (1993), 17, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.
Most of the members of this audience, even when they were embryos in the womb, were still middle-class twentieth-century Canadians. Religion calls that original sin. Political theory calls it, or used to call it, the social contract. But whatever it is called it has an element in it which is to some extent ironic, even tragic.
“The Ethics of Change: The Role of the University” (1968), addressing a symposium at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ont., Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Confederation
The main thing wrong with Confederation was its impoverished cultural basis. It was thought of, however unconsciously, as a British colony and a Tory counterpart of the United States, with French and indigenous groups forming picturesque variations in the background.
“The Cultural Development of Canada” (1990), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
I feel that directly in front of us lies a primary need for what I shall call Reconfederation, and which I think of essentially as providing a cultural skeleton for the country that fits its present conditions. Without a cultural Reconfederation there can be only continued political tinkering of the most futile kind.
“The Cultural Development of Canada” (1990), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
It is clearly time to start creating a second positive event in our history: Reconfederation.
“Italy in Canada” (1990), referring to Confederation of 1867 as “the most positive event in Canadian history,” Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
It is possible that what we think of as the centenary of Confederation may turn out to be our genuine Confederation, a period of spiritual rebirth in response to the central social fact of our time: that man must unite, not divide, because he simply will not survive in a state of radical disunity.
“Foreword to The Prospect of Change” (1965), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
Conformism
The