Conducted early May 1979
Translation by Nella Cotrupi of the Italian article, “Sogna sui laghi il nuovo americano,” La Repubblica, Culture section, 12 May 1979. La Repubblica is a prominent Left/Centrist daily newspaper published in Rome. Frye was interviewed in Toronto by Gian Piero Brunetta just before his departure for Italy on a lecture tour that would take him to seven universities—in Milan, Vicenza, Padua, Venice, Florence, Urbino, and Rome—for lectures and conferences. He arrived on 13 May, the day after this article appeared, and stayed until 6 June. Before the text of the interview Brunetta remarked that, in spite of the translation of seven of Frye’s books into Italian in the preceding ten years1 and the high esteem in which he was held, Italian critics had not scrutinized his work in depth. He prefaced his remarks with the following quotation from Frye:
I find it difficult to say where my interest in Italian culture begins and ends. I’m interested in the Renaissance, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Bruno, and La Commedia and, since I’ve begun to focus on the theory of criticism, in Vico. I read, out of sheer curiosity, the works of some contemporary poets. I also read Croce but I got very little out of it.
BRUNETTA: Mr. Frye, you maintain that Canadians, after being for a long time an American colony, are today trying to discover, or rediscover, their own identity.
FRYE: For as long as Canada has existed Canadians have had an almost neurotic obsession that has pushed them to seek their own identity, underlining, as much as possible, the non-American traits. This preoccupation, one widely held, goes back to the nineteenth century when Canada became a political entity thanks to Loyalist refugees from the American Revolution. Canadians have always been troubled by the fact that in other countries they are always presumed to be American citizens. Personally, I believe that the identity of a nation can be reached only through a distinct culture; as far as literature is concerned, this identity, at least in English Canada, is a development of the last few decades. Today, in Canadian literature, we can point to important poets like Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton, or Margaret Atwood, or prose writers such as Alice Munro or Timothy Findley—some of whom are well known in Italy, too.
BRUNETTA: Since the war in Vietnam the American myth has been shaken to its very foundation. To what extent has this also affected Canadians?
FRYE: Traditionally, the American consciousness is exuberant and progressive. This exuberance has always been envied by Canadians, who don’t possess the natural and technological resources of the United States. But since the Vietnam war, the Americans have begun to realize that even their civilization can experience a downward spiral, or, at least, that it can have limitations. So, in some ways, Americans have moved closer to the Canadian mentality, which is more introverted and perhaps self-deprecating. I maintain that the Americans have been “Canadianized” in their way of life. But maybe only a Canadian can understand this paradox.
BRUNETTA: What would you say are the most characteristic aspects of the Canadian myth and how does it differ from the American myth?
FRYE: The difference is firstly geographical. When you arrive in Canada by sea you are literally swallowed by the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the St. Lawrence River, and the Great Lakes. You have the impression that Canada is a “one-dimensional” country which remains united thanks to the driving East–West movement that, starting from the St. Lawrence, crosses the Great Lakes and, continuing in the same direction, reaches the wide prairies. An analogous pattern arises in the United States too, but in the U.S.A. there are two directions, insofar as a North–South movement was established during the American Revolution. Another difference lies in the existence of the American frontier in the West which expanded gradually until it reached the Pacific, where it totally disappeared. In the history of Canada the frontier has always been circular, embracing all parts of the country, so that, even today, you can find many entirely isolated communities which try to establish contacts in all directions.
As far as the historical difference goes I have already given a partial answer: the Canadian, practically speaking, is an American who has repudiated the American Revolution and therefore has repudiated everything that, in terms of English history, would be described as “Whig” elements: i.e., the assumption that freedom and independence are the same thing. In this country, a great part of the economy is based on the American model, but state control is more widespread. In Canada, there are national radio and television and a national railway system, and you can find other forms of government subsidy which would be unthinkable in the U.S.
BRUNETTA: The cluster of mythologies which made up the so-called American myth, do you think they have reached an end or do you think they can re-emerge in different forms?
FRYE: I think the naive stage based on the optimistic progressivism of the American consciousness has come to an end, as has the desire to live apart from the rest of the world. The Utopian conviction of being able to create a totally different way of life has vanished. The United States for some time now has taken on the role of great imperialistic power. Since I believe that nothing in history reaches an end, it follows that there must be a restructuring even of the American consciousness sooner or later. However, it is difficult to foresee what characteristics it will assume. I do think, however, that the mosaic of the modern world consists of various pieces: the Marxist consciousness of Russia or China, the American, the Japanese, the consciousness of the European common market …
BRUNETTA: Is it possible today to posit once again great unitary mythologies, or are we witnessing the fragmentation of mythologies?
FRYE: I think that there exists only one social mythology which results from the co-existence of many contradictory mythologies. I’ve always tried to show that unity is the opposite of uniformity. On the one hand there is the Marxist revolutionary push, eager to create an essentially uniform structure, and on the other hand there is a growing society that presents a variety of contradictory mythologies. For me, the latter represents the ideal solution. Uniformity means sameness; unity means the co-existence of diverse individual expressions.