. . . reading & reading about Northrop Frye . . . again . . . for the first time . . . again . . . overwhelmed by the feeling of so much was missed in those previous two or three reads, decades ago now . . . sometimes it takes reading through other eyes . . .
". . .the artist demonstrates a certain way of life; his aim is not to be appreciated or admired. but to transfer to others the imaginative habit and energy . . ." (The Stubborn Structure 161)
. . . in youth . . . "Obviously the world is entering a prodigious change, but the new morality will have to do something better than a rehash of the vague deistic and utilitarian sentimentalism of the very capitalistic system the Communists are most concerned to attack. There will have to be something better, for me, than the communistic exploiting of emotion by intellect. Read Blake or go to Hell: that's my message to the modern world." (Letter to Helen Kemp, 23 Apr. 1935/Joseph Adamson. Northrop Frye A Visionary Life 27)
Thoughts, wrote Nietzsche, are shadows of our feelings: always darker, emptier, and simpler than these. And the written word, it strikes me, is but a shadow of our thoughts. 
