religion

Map of Virginia

Notes on the State of Virginia: Journey to the Center of an American Document, Queries XVII-XVIII

Here’s a confession. When I talk about NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, I sometimes refer to Jefferson’s “queries” as “cantos.” Like a poetic canto, which stands or falls on the music of its syllables, Jefferson’s queries must have enough tensile strength to contain his ideas, and space to expand them.

Statue of Northrop Frye

Four Intriguing Ideas from Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism

Autonomous Verbal Structures Frye can’t start critiquing literature without first defining what literature is. (Actually, in the introduction he starts at the very beginning by defining criticism itself. Pedantic? A little. Worth reading? Definitely.) He eventually settles on what I find to be one of the more intriguing definitions of literature: “autonomous verbal structures.” Outside…