Polemics, Apologetics

Frye preludes "Anatomy of Criticism" with a polemic introductions- having come across this term on more than one occasion in the study of lit crit, i had to wiki the definition, just to be clear on what we were referring to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_Criticism (see "polemic introduction"). What makes Anatomy of Criticism polemic? Polemic is defined as "the practice of disputing religious, philosophical, or political matters"- in other words, the "touchy" subject, the ones which, as we said in class, you NEVER bring up. So a polemic text, than, like Anatomy of Criticism, seeks to dispute a theory that is seemingly indisputable. That's Frye for you, going above and beyond mere dispute.

Curiously enough (leave it to the genius of wikipedia- one thing leads to another, link after link of synchronization), the definition for polemic included it's antonym: Apologia. As in Apologetics. Apologists argue for, rather than against, those touchy theories. Apologia is Frye= polemics. Sidney/ Shelley= apologetics. Anyways, i thought it was quite interesting that Frye and Sidney are by definition, opposites, both in style and in school of thought, since that was the initial impression I got in reading and comparing their works.