if . . .

The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. - Coleridge (found in the introduction of Frye. The Eternal Act of Creation.)

. . . ah yes the whole idea of beauty . . . "There's clearly a strong force making toward conformity in society, so strong that it seems to have something to do with the stability of society itself. In ordinary life even the most splendid things we can think of, like goodness and truth and beauty, all mean essentially what we're accustomed to. As I hinted just now in speaking of female make-up, most of our ideas of beauty are pure convention, and even truth has been defined as whatever doesn't disturb the pattern of what we already know" (Northrop Frye. The Educated Imagination 35)

. . . 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 Vision...