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Benjamin Espen

WBH Bi-monthly Digest 2024-04-19: Bring Back the Assholes

WBH Bi-monthly Digest 2024-04-19: Bring Back the Assholes

A long post from M. C. A. Hogarth on how well the Princess and the Frog holds up fifteen years later. The Princess and the Frog isn't a great fit for the Heroine's Journey, which is good, since checkbox-style scripts or plots are the death of

WBH Monthly Digest 2024-04-05: Letters to Garcia

WBH Monthly Digest 2024-04-05: Letters to Garcia

Life currently prevents the weekly digest from being weekly, but I've got so much good stuff saved up for these that something has to give. I've noted before the Letter to Garcia is a Sorelian myth, in that it enables action even if the historical facts

Northrop Frye on Symbol as Image

Northrop Frye on Symbol as Image

The third phase of Frye's phases of literal symbolism is the formal phase. This will be Frye's briefest section in the second essay, but don't let it fool you. Frye is making a synthesis out of the prior two phases, the literal and descriptive

SGT. Thor the Damned Review

SGT. Thor the Damned Review

Why is this so good? I finished reading this on a plane and I immediately wanted to go back and buy the two earlier volumes, but I couldn't without ponying up for airline internet access. But it was so much fun to read this that I seriously considered

Dune: Part Two Movie Review

Dune: Part Two Movie Review

Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two movie adaption of the second half of Frank Herbert's Dune is very good. Verging on greatness. Villeneuve successfully captured key thematic elements of Dune in a way that is likely to resonate with audiences now. I say this for two simple

Northrop Frye on Literal and Descriptive Phases

Northrop Frye on Literal and Descriptive Phases

After our brief introduction to the Second Essay in the Anatomy of Criticism, we will turn to the phases of literary symbolism. This will get very abstract, very quickly, because we are going to try to describe things are that are nearly indescribable. Bear with me, the only way out

Northrop Frye's Second Essay: The Theory of Symbols

Northrop Frye's Second Essay: The Theory of Symbols

In the first essay, which Frye subtitled "Historical Criticism", Frye created his categories by looking at the historical development of heroes and themes. In the second essay, Frye will turn to the different contexts in which we interpret symbols. Since Frye spends a lot of time coming up