"A writer's desire to write can only have come from previous experience of literature, and he'll start by imitating whatever he's read, which usually means what the people around him are writing."
After reading the second chapter that quote was the one that stood out to me the most. This to me seems to not be entirely true to most significant writers in history. Most writers who have made compelling additions to the world made truly unique pieces, such as shakespear and Dickens. That said, I can agree that a lot of less known writers have made very similer stories. Usually in the basic theme or plot of the story. But as an example our modern world of liturature being unique is a must to be sucesfull. This is due to the popularity of books and poems decreasing with the advancement of technology. Which pushes the modern writers to create something so eye catching and unique it can take the attention away from other forms of entertainment. So in a sense he is true with the past history of liturature, but incorrect with our modern day writers.
I like your idea of relating what you've read and how u've synthesized it into today's world. Aristotle once wrote on the subject of "tabula rasa" - that the mind is a clean slate; everything we do is a result to something we've experienced. This understandably is a difficult concept to grasp as it would appear that a child immediately knows to breathe after being born, and so it must have gained the knowledge from some other source. However we've learned that a child's behvaiour will reflect strongly upon the envirnoment into which tehy are born, whether that's wilderness or a home or some strange variation between the two. My question is how you think this now applies to Frye's quote?
ReplyDelete