ESC: English Studies in Canada

human power, the rational Lewis remained skeptical of it as a source of knowledge. “Nevertheless,” Adey says, “he based his fiction. . . on the as­ sumption that divine truth enters the human psyche via myth, dream or other manifestations of imagination.” Adey believes that “Lewis’s theology remains essentially static, a case, theologically speaking, of arrested develop­ ment.” Adey finds more attractive Barfield’s conception of a developing human consciousness that is closely related to the cosmos. Adey presents and interprets the debate between Lewis and Barfield grace­ fully and clearly. His book is no mere summary. He has in part to recon­ struct the debate, for, as we have seen, not all of it was written; and Lewis did not save Barfield’s letters. Moreover, as I have suggested, Adey exercises a sympathetic but sharp critical intelligence as he presents the arguments of the two friends, and he relates the debate to their published work. It is unfortunate that the book, though well documented in other respects, lacks a bibliography and an index, for it is a valuable account of an aspect of the intellectual history of the twentieth century. j. k . Jo h n sto n e / University of Saskatchewan Northrop Frye, Creation and Recreation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980). 76. $3.95 This little book consists of three essays delivered as the 1980 Larkin-Stuart lectures. They are avowedly the precursor of a full-length study of the influence of Biblical narrative and imagery on secular literature. As such, they are all too frequently a frustrating disappointment. While one hesitates to throw pebbles at one of the giants of literary criticism, there is little in these essays to indicate what the contours of that larger study will be and to what audience it will appeal. Frye says he is concerned with the biblical and literary concepts of “crea­ tion.” The parallels and distinctions he draws between creation as a divine and a human activity are valid, but he also asserts at the outset that the fact that we entertain any concept of Creation at all is of far more importance than exactly what our belief is concerning the relationship between creator and creature. This is the key to understanding these essays, and also the reason they might well prove disquieting to those who believe that the rela­ tionship of man to his Creator is quite important, and not just for literary reasons. The first essay examines creation as a human activity which cannot be dissociated from human culture and civilization. We do not live in isolation, 245 nor do we live in intimacy with nature. Frye argues that, while science attempts to look through our “ envelope” of civilization to see nature directly, literature is more like a mirror in which we see all things in reference to ourselves. It acts to evoke the repressed, past, and sometimes disturbing aspects of our lives, and consequently often meets with social resistance. This tension created by certain of the arts can become a transforming force in a society. Using the first six chapters of Genesis as a model, Frye argues that the vision of a future more idealized society lies at the bottom of man’s desire to create, and his activities are described in Frye’s use of the term “recrea­ tion.” This is closely tied to his understanding of the comic vision in litera­ ture with its frequent emphasis on regeneration and reconciliation. But all of this is really not very new, and readers of Frye will recognize much familiar territory here. In fact, this is one of the major problems of the book, the sense that one has heard much of this before but continues to hope for some genuinely new insights as the essays develop. The second essay is devoted to an examination of the myth of divine creation as expressed in Genesis. Its approach to much of the Bible as myth will undoubtedly be offensive to some, who will not find it easy to agree with such assertions as: “it is only when the creation story is considered factually false that it can be of any conceivable use to us.” Frye goes on to discuss...