Butterfly on Rock: A Study of Themes and Images in Canadian Literature by D.G. Jones
Published 1970 · 70,000 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is Butterfly on Rock: A Study of Themes and Images in Canadian Literature to read?
Butterfly on Rock: A Study of Themes and Images in Canadian Literature scores 43 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 70 out of 100
- Mythopoeic and symbolic critical vocabulary requires some familiarity with the Frygian tradition.
- Sentence structure: 60 out of 100
- Abstraction: 70 out of 100
- Operates between close textual analysis and broad claims about Canadian cultural psychology.
- Information density: 70 out of 100
- Dense with primary text readings and symbolic pattern-tracing across multiple authors.
- Narrative indirection: 30 out of 100
- Argument is stated and developed directly; the butterfly/rock image organizes the book clearly.
- Symbolic density: 70 out of 100
- Images of stone, water, and flight are the book's primary critical instruments.
- Ironic distance: 30 out of 100
- Earnest mythopoeic criticism; the tone is engaged rather than detached.
- Resolution withholding: 30 out of 100
- Conclusions about Canadian symbolic imagination are stated and maintained throughout.
- Structural complexity: 50 out of 100
- Thematic organization around recurring images; chapters build incrementally on the central argument.
How Butterfly on Rock: A Study of Themes and Images in Canadian Literature is regarded
Butterfly on Rock: A Study of Themes and Images in Canadian Literature holds a literary regard score of 36 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.