Sherry Chandler » Frye on Absentmindedness

Frye on Absentmindedness

Professors are absent-minded, & it isn’t the fun for them that it is for professional jokers. Like poets, they have to carry their work around with them & can never go about without their mental hands full, so to speak…I’ve said that this is all induced by the laziness endemic in academic work, & in fact I find that when the disease is at its worst I’m never concentrating hard on a job—I’m just not thinking of anything at all. It’s the state in which I feel so irritated at my stupidities that I get irritated at my irritation, which is a hell of an arse-biting state of mind to be in.

— from Northrop Frye Unbuttoned. Wit and Wisdom from the Notebooks and Diaries (Gnomon 2004)

Possibly related posts:

    Frye on Children
    Frye on Beauty
    Frye on The East
    Frye on Cat & Mouse
    Frye on Absence

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <strong>