Today in class we talked about some of the differences between Frye's types of symbolism, paying particular attention to the Descriptive, which is the one that poetry cannot be. The reason for this is that the Descritive(sign) type is concerned with the factuality of what words convey, and acts centrifugally, as opposed to the other types of symbolism which poetry can fall under and which act centripetally. Facts are of utmost importance in journalism, not so much in literature.


We also discussed the discussion found on pg. 411-12 of Don Quixote where the canon is talking about literature, and he expresses his certainty that literature must be morally instructive in order to be good and truthful. The canon feels that literature's primary aim should be didactic. His argument(rather similar to Plato's) denotes literature to the merely ornamental, rather than the essential or vital. So when someone asks you "What's it about?" its quite possible that your answer will belittle the book's actual contents.

I'm thinking it's a great thing if you learn something from a book; but having this as the motivating purpose behind the book makes me rather leary. For one, how do you know(unless one's style and storytelling are mind-numbingly blunt) that people are going to learn from the story what it is you want them to learn? Like someone saying that they've learned from Don Quixote "Don't read too much." or from Les Miserables "dont' steal, the consequences could be dire" Attempting to control meaning, more often than not, doesn't succeed. And for those who set their minds on attempting to succeed at controlling meaning, that spills into censorship. Which those of us who do read and think it is important to learn things don't want.