We have to adopt the hypothesis, then, that just as there is an order of nature behind the natural sciences, so literature is not a piled aggregate of “works,” but an order of words. A belief in an order of nature, however, is an inference from the intelligibility of the natural sciences; and if the natural sciences ever completely demonstrated the order of nature they would presumably exhaust their subject. Similarly, criticism, if a science, must be totally intelligible, but literature, as the order of words which makes the science possible, is, so far as we know, an inexhaustible source of new critical discoveries, and would be even if new works of literature ceased to be written.
In this important quote, Frye summarizes his theory of literary criticism as a science. That means it is interested in constructing a system which identifies the patterns and explains the logic behind how works of literature "work," similar to how physical objects operate in a system of laws derived by physicists. Just like how physicists can always be inspired by and study every new event that happens in life—every time a rock falls, it is an occasion to study gravity—so, too, does every work of literature provide insights into the larger literary system.
The strong emotional repugnance felt by many critics toward any form of schematization in poetics is again the result of a failure to distinguish criticism as a body of knowledge from the direct experience of literature, where every act is unique, and classification has no place.
Here, Frye defends his view of criticism as a science from charges that to see it as such is reductive or damages the power literature has. He argues that “experiencing” literature is different from studying it. A physicist can experience a rainbow and enjoy it. She can also study a rainbow and understand the principles and laws of gravity and optics that make the rainbow. That doesn’t stop the physicist from experiencing the rainbow. Similarly, a literary critic can enjoy a singular piece of literature and study a work of literature. They are two different things, and one doesn’t prevent the other.
Also there is a general distinction between fictions in which the hero becomes isolated from his society, and fictions in which he is incorporated into it. This distinction is expressed by the words "tragic" and "comic" when they refer to aspects of plot in general and not simply to forms of drama.
In the First Essay, Frye first explores the five different modes, or powers of action, in two different types of fiction, the tragic and the comic. In later chapters, he will have a different definition of tragedy and comedy as “mythoi.” Here, however, he is relying on a more popular definition, because he is more interested in exploring modes. Since modes have to do with powers of action, or how powerful a character is relative to his society, it makes sense that Frye would use a definition of the tragic and the comic that has to to with the relationship between a hero and his society.
Hence every work of literature has both a fictional and a thematic aspect, and the question of which is more important is often simply a matter of opinion or emphasis in interpretation.
In his discussion of modes, Frye distinguishes between fictional literature, which is primarily about plot, and thematic literature, which is primarily about ideas. He will make a similar distinction in his discussion of fictions in the chapter on genres. Here, he makes the important point that these are less categories of literature and more ways of studying literature. All literature probably has some amount of narrative and some amount of ideas. Calling it fictional or thematic is then indicating which part of the literature you are emphasizing at the time.
The meaning of a literary work forms a part of a larger whole. In the previous essay we saw that meaning or dianoia was one of three elements, the other two being mythos or narrative and ethos or characterization. It is better to think, therefore, not simply of a sequence of meanings, but of a sequence of contexts or relationships in which the whole work of literary art can be placed, each context having its characteristic mythos and ethos as well as its dianoia or meaning.
Throughout Anatomy of Criticism, Frye has frequent recourse to this tripartite division of dianoia (meaning), mythos (narrative), and ethos (characterization). Different categories can be discussed in these different ways, and so Frye is also discussing three different kinds of criticism. When studying literature, we can alternate between looking at ideas, looking at plot, or looking at social context.
These cyclical symbols are usually divided into four main phases, the four seasons of the year being the type for four periods of the day (morning, noon, evening, night), four aspects of the water-cycle (rain, fountains, rivers, sea or snow), four periods of life (youth, maturity, age, death), and the like.
In this quote, Frye lays the groundwork for his definition of mythoi. He is discussing how groups of imagery—for instance symbols related to the divine world or the human world or the vegetable world—often have a cycle of birth to death, with four phases. The fundamental form of this cycle is the four seasons of the year, from the birth of spring to the death of winter. Frye will go on to argue that these four phases are the foundation for the four “mythoi”: comedy, romance, tragedy, and satire.
We have thus answered the question: are there narrative categories of literature broader than, or logically prior to, the ordinary literary genres? There are four such categories: the romantic, the tragic, the comic, and the ironic or satiric.
Frye is talking about the four mythoi in this quote: four fundamental phases in groups of imagery, correlated to the four seasons of spring (comedy), summer (romance), autumn (tragedy), and winter (satire). He calls these mythoi “prior to” the literary genres, which in the following chapter he will list as fictions, lyrics, “epos,” and dramas. The point is that a genre, such as fiction, can be any of the mythoi: comedies, romances, tragedies, and satires are all possible on the printed page. The way Frye understands it, the four mythoi come first, and then the genres give them form.
We complained in our introduction that the theory of genres was an undeveloped subject in criticism. We have the three generic terms drama, epic, and lyric, derived from the Greeks, but we use the latter two chiefly as jargon or trade slang for long and short (or shorter) poems respectively.
According to Frye, the Greeks named three primary genres: drama, epic, and lyric. Frye thinks genre criticism has not progressed beyond the knowledge developed by the Greeks, over two thousand years ago. This has had the effect that the three terms have been abused, stretched to describe things the ancient Greeks did not have to describe— such as novels. He also disagrees that these are the three primary genres. But he agrees with the Greeks that genres should be identified according to how they are presented. For the Greeks, the division was into dramas, which were acted; epics, which were spoken; and lyrics, which were sung.
The basis of generic criticism in any case is rhetorical, in the sense that the genre is determined by the conditions established between the poet and his public.
This quote contains more than one summary of what Frye means about genre. On the one hand, genres are about the relationship between author and audience—the “poet” and the “public.” But to study genres is to study “rhetoric,” because what matters in this relationship is how a genre is presented. Ultimately, Frye thinks there are four genres, each defined by a different form of presentation: drama (acted), epos (spoken), lyric (addressed to an individual), and fiction (printed).
To sum up then: when we examine fiction from the point of view of form, we can see four chief strands binding it together, novel, confession, anatomy, and romance.
In this quote, Frye lists the four main subgenres of fiction, which are the genre of works printed on a page. Frye identifies the four according to whether a fiction is introverted or extroverted and whether it is personal or intellectual. A romance is introverted and personal: that means it is subjective and about people. A confession is introverted and intellectual: that means it is subjective and about ideas. An anatomy is extroverted and intellectual: objective and about ideas. Finally, a novel is extroverted and personal: an objective fiction about people. What is important in this quote is that each subgenre is called a “strand.” That means it is less a sealed category than a tradition, and some works of literature weave together multiple strands, drawing on multiple traditions. That means you can have works that are hybrids of two or more of the strands.
