Literature is not a subject of study, but an object of study. - Northrop Frye

The objective world is only “material”: it’s there, but it could be there in a great many different forms and aspects...Even here there [are] still possibilities: it can’t be just anything. But perhaps extracting a finite schema from the variety of mythologies, literatures, or religions might contribute something to the understanding of what some of these possibilities could be. The individual can’t create his own world, except in art or fantasy: society can only create a myth of concern. What fun if one could get just a peep at what some of the other worlds are that a new humanity could create–no, live in. (p. 287-8)

The operations of the human mind are also controlled by words of power, formulas that become a focus of mental activity.

Experience is nearly always commonplace; the present is not romantic in the way the past is, and ideals and great visions have a way of becoming shoddy and squalid in practical life. Literature reverses this process.