chapter summaries, the educated imagination

The motive for metaphor is the desire to associate and identify the human mind with

what goes on outside it. In chapter one of The Educated Imagination, The Motive for Metaphor,

Northrop Frye questions literature; What good is it? What is the social value? What is the place

of the imagination that literature addresses itself to in the learning process? Will we outgrow it?

To try to answer these questions, Frye uses a series of comparisons : objective and

subjective worlds, intellect and emotion, arts and sciences, what we have to do versus what we

want to do, and necessity versus freedom. He also writes about the three levels of mind. The first

one being the level of consciousness and awareness where the most important thing is “the

difference between me and everything else”. Next, is the level of social participation, the

technological language of teachers , preachers and politicians, known as “the language of

practical sense.” Last, the level of imagination, which “produces the literary language of poems

The main point Frye focus’s on in this chapter, is the idea that literature cann

that are about the Bible directly, People quote it everyday. If we want to know more about what

used to, more needs = more intense conflict. This does not mean we cannot recognize primitive

One of the main points Northrop Frye has tried to communicate with us throughout this

Some topics in this essay:
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