Talk:Anatomy of Criticism

message: I've been re-reading the 4th essay, rhetorical criticism, and now I finally feel I'm getting an understanding of the material. I've done an overhaul of the section, and it should be more helpful. As I'm becoming more familiar w/ wikipedia, I'm gaining a better sense of how this article can be improved by simplification or even modularization by making some new pages. I'd like to make a glossary of literary terms as used by Frye and suggested by Han below. This would probably be best as a separate page since I imagine it could easily grow to a list of around a hundred terms. Still more to be done on the 4th essay, but this is a start. (btw I don't think I was logged in when I posted the overhaul... oh well.)--JECompton 03:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Han, it is true that Frye introduces a number of terms and uses seemingly familiar terms in unusual ways. I'm not sure how we could fit it in, but a glossary of Frye's terminology would certainly be helpful to me. I've recently been re-reading the 4th essay on rhetorical criticism, and it's starting to make some sense. Hopefully I can flesh that section out a bit. Also, I've been toying with ways of making this article less verbose by summarizing and using lists/tables/other schema to re-present Frye's ideas in a sort of thumbnail view. Hamilton's Anatomy of His Criticism gives several quotes from Frye himself on how he had made a conscious effort to make a graphical scheme for literature. If I remember correctly, Frye made many diagrams of his theories in the process of writing the book, and it makes me curious if these are extant and useful for understanding the work. Finally, thanks to the various people who have been editing the page by fixing typos, broken links, and also some contribution of content. Hopefully we can get more...
--JECompton 21:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Observations (in reversed order)

message: - The uses of "it" and "he" in the first sentences are indefinite pronouns.
- The paragraph seems to apply to the entire work, but tragedy, comedy, and especially the alazon are covered mainly in the first essay.
- The paragraph is a little too polemic without being informative. Negative criticism of Frye is mentioned but not supported by any citation. The reaction to this negative criticism (e.g. "Yet we see them every day") is likewise unsupported and does not, in my opinion, provide an informative aid to the text.
- The mention of "Green World Theory" is undeveloped and uninformative, at least in the way done so here.
- The examples of sitcoms and cartoons to support the modern pertinency of the concept of the alazon are undeveloped and would be better placed under a separate section.
- The sentence beginning "A lot of Frye's theory..." contributes little to the article.
- Mention of Bergson's Laughter would need more development to be of use.
--JECompton 03:32, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons for deletion 

message: Ironic tragedy
shows the death or suffering of a protagonist who is both weak and pitiful compared to the rest of humanity and the protagonist's environment; Kafka's works provide many examples.
Ironic comedy
borders on savagery, the inflicting of pain on a helpless victim (whereas in ironic tragedy the victim endures the pain). Some examples of this include tales of lynch mobs, murder mysteries, or human sacrifice. (In our time we might recognize ironic comedy in the absurdist type, such as Monty Python.)
Could someone please clarify this? --Han ([User talk: Tshase|Talk]) 14:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks JECompton, I understand the two concepts better now. --Han (talk) 13:54, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ironic comedy and ironic tragedy 

message: To summarize Frye's argument is a noble project, but I suspect that this article in its present state leaves much to be desired.  Just looking at the synopsis of the first essay, I see that it confuses mood and mode. Specifically, it presents Frye talks of the tragic, the comic, and the thematic as modes, when in fact Frye's modes are literary categories corresponding to the hero's nature and powers.  In his Glossary, he defines Mode as: "A conventional power of action assumed about the chief characters in fictional literature, or the corresponding attitude assumed by the poet towards his audience in thematic literature." For example: fictional literature in the Mythic mode consists of poems whose heroes are gods.  Thematic literature in the Mythic mode is prophecy: i.e., the poet assumes the attitude of an interpreter of the divine will, as in much of the Bible. I will correct the chart to reflect this, but much more needs to be done.
pmr (talk) 15:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In the process of revision I observed that the term Mode was used properly further on in the page, so my contribution at least has the merit of removing inconsistency!
pmr (talk) 16:13, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks pmr, your edits are a substantial improvement. The grammar, usage and consistency are markedly better. It would be nice if others joined in! Perhaps my only question regards a section where you removed the "Ages of Man" idea. Although not the most important point in the essay, Frye's identification of the modes with the Classical Ages is explicit. Other than that, I hope that you or others will come along and improve the content of the theory of genres section. Also, I hope we'll see more references to external criticism of Frye's work. Many critics evaluate Anatomy very differently than, say, a critic like Harold Bloom did... Thanks again, and keep editing!JECompton (talk) 01:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kudos and caveats 

message: I'm just not up to contributing to Frye scholarship, but
I can't help but wonder if the article section titled
'Miscellaneous' wouldn't be better placed here, in the
Talk page; in their current form, the contents of that 
section just dont add up to much.  Indeed, the very notion
of a 'Miscellaneous' section suggests incomplete
organization (as has been said of 'Trivia' sections in
other articles.) 206.248.138.250 (talk) 20:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  miscellaneous 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Anatomy of Criticism. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20050403220409/http://pages.prodigy.net:80/aesir/aoc.htm to http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/aoc.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 12:59, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Frye's theorizing about epic would be a good addition to epic poetry. If you're so inclined, please edit that page. 2600:8806:340B:E100:A0EA:A3B4:8CB3:563A (talk) 01:42, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Have you read Anatomy of Criticism? [[Epic Poetry]] could use your help!