Like most of the sets of typed notes floating unorganized in the Northrop Frye Fonds, Notes 60–1 cannot be dated with any certainty, beyond saying that they cannot have been composed earlier than 1950, the date of the first edition of Gaster’s Thespis. A more probable date is late 1962 or early 1963, around the time of the earlier portions of Notebook 9, which allude to the revised edition of Gaster’s book, published in 1961. At that point, Frye was thinking about the ritual origins of drama, and about literature’s progress “from ritual to romance.” The typescript is located in the NFF, 1993, box 3, file 12.
[1] Jessie Weston, From Ritual to Romance, p. 72 [75–6].1 “A most remarkable and significant use of these symbols is found in the ceremonies of the Samurai, the noble warrior caste of Japan. The aspirant was (I am told still is) admitted into the caste at the age of fourteen, when he is [was] given over to the care of a guardian at least fifteen years his senior, to whom he took an oath of obedience, which was sworn upon the Spear. He remained celibate during the period covered by the oath. When the Samurai was held to have attained the degree of responsibility which would fit him for the full duties of a citizen, a second solemn ceremony was held, at which he was released from his previous vows, and presented with the Cup; he was henceforth free to marry, but intercourse with women previous to this ceremony was at one time punishable by death.” In her usual blithery way, she adds a note saying somebody told her this and there’s no evidence for it, but the similarity to the “virgin knot” business in The Tempest may have caught Eliot’s eye.2 The point is the sexual nature of the spear and cup. Spear means wand, which Prospero holds. Incidentally, it was Yeats who assured her of the continued existence of the four Tarot suits in magic (p. 75 [79]), which is another link.
[2] Weston, using Schroeder’s Mysterium und Mimus, says the Indian sword-dancers or Maruts are rejected from sacrifice by Indra because they deserted him when he killed the dragon Vritra and freed the waters [83]. The Beowulf resemblance is close.3 Maybe the Maruts are wind gods [84]. Schroeder lists four kinds of Aryan symbolic units (p. 80 [84]; I don’t know what her point is here), the wild hunt, the spectral army, the host of mad women (Maenads), and the train of beast-like or beast-headed demons of fertility, sometimes with a group of fair women.
[3] Check the Fasti about Anna Perenna, an old woman who disguises herself as a young one (new year) to marry Mars.4
[4] Maybe the Cook of Classical Comedy was originally the doctor or medicine man of the St. George-type plays. Schroeder on Rig-Veda, 10.97 [101]. And maybe Cornford says so.5 In one of the early Quem Quaeritis plays there’s a scene between the Maries and an “Unguentarius” they buy their spices from. Chambers, ii, 33 [105].6 The R.J. [Romeo and Juliet] apothecary is similar, in a tragic context. Anyway he has to be a healer—that is, St. George dies himself in killing the dragon. The symbolic road from Waste Land to East Coker in Eliot is very straight—he saw so much better than Miss Weston the symbolic identity of Christian and extra-Christian symbolism, such as the Fisher. She depends a good deal on Eisler’s book on Orpheus the Fisherman.7 The Fisher King (p. 114 [118–191) is dead and restored to life, or old and restored to youth (Aristophanes’ Knights), or sick and restored to health (All’s Well).
[5] Some interesting fish, apart from the Salmon of Wisdom in Ireland [124]—Manu in India protects a little fish that grows and saves him from the universal deluge. Named Jhasa. Mahabharata, Book III [126]. Dolphin archetype. I have wondered what the single unit in my water division was—maybe it’s the fish, or could be the fish, []as the totality of water in the demonic context is leviathan with all the fish sticking to him. Both Vishnu and Buddha have fishy attributes;8 in Babylonia Oannes the fish-god is the source of wisdom—apparently Eisler wants to suggest a Oannes-Johannes link [125]. The Jungians should have more on this, as fish symbolism certainly suggests their unconscious sea. Dove and fish often associated, as in Christianity [133].
[6] Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun,9 says [sic], p. 71: says Adonis belongs to “einer Klasse von Wessen [Wesen] sehr unbestimmter Art, der wohl über den menschen aber unter grossen Göttern stehen, und weniger Individualität besitzen als diese.” Sounds useful.
[7] Frazer, in his Preface to his Second Edition, says (3rd ed. Vol. I, xxv), “The position of the anthropologist to-day resembles in some sort the positions of classical scholars at the revival of learning.” Anyway, he’s the starting point of an investigation into symbolism extended to Greek literature, especially drama, by Gilbert Murray, Jane Harrison, and Cornford; to Canaanite and Oriental ritual and drama by Gaster in Thespis,10 and to the Grail romances, with less success, by Jessie Weston. Later came a type of symbolism referring mainly to occultism and the Cabbala, reinforced with alchemy, expounded by A.E. Waite11 in relation to the Grail, which has now been exploited by Jung and his school. It’s basically psychological, as the other is basically anthropological. It’s more important for Romantic symbolism, on the whole, and via Blavatsky gets into Yeats. Frobenius12 attempts to combine the two—he seems about the only one who does. There are some points of importance about Frazer often overlooked. For one thing, he isn’t primarily an anthropologist but primarily a Classical scholar who uses anthropological material; hence his main sources were available to Spenser and Milton, and in fact were used by them and their contemporaries.
[8]13 |
1. existential art of conscious being |
divine |
|---|---|---|
|
2. mythical art |
spiritual |
|
3. archetypal art (narrative) |
human |
|
4. formal art (high mimetic) |
animal |
|
5. realistic art (low mimetic) |
plant |
|
6. ironic art |
matter |
|
7. existential art of savagery |
chaos (water) |