Northrop Frye
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye, CC FRSCwas a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth14 July 1912
CitySherbrooke, Canada
CountryCanada
firsts study structure
The first thing that confronts us in studying verbal structures is that they are arranged sequentially, and have to be read or listened to in time.
imagination situation rhetorical
We find rhetorical situations everywhere in life, and only our imaginations can get us out of them.
religious men anxiety
Man is constantly building anxiety-structures, like geodesic domes, around his social and religious institutions.
revolution rejects
Historically, a Canadian is an American who rejects the Revolution.
healthy movement culture
Separatism is a very healthy movement within culture. It's a disastrous movement within politics and economics.
superstitions benefits kind
Writers don't seem to benefit much by the advance of science, although they thrive on superstitions of all kinds.
magic literature kind
No human society is too primitive to have some kind of literature. The only thing is that primitive literature hasn't yet become distinguished from other aspects of life: it's still embedded in religion, magic and social ceremonies.
space goes-on scared
We notice as the Bible goes on, the area of scared space shrinks.
imagination world anything-goes
In the world of the imagination, anything goes that's imaginatively possible, but nothing really happens.
copying made novel
Poetry can only be made out of other poems; novels out of other novels.
sleep fundamentals language
Wherever illiteracy is a problem, it's as fundamental a problem as getting enough to eat or a place to sleep.
essence limits culture
It is of the essence of imaginative culture that it transcends the limits both of the naturally possible and of the morally acceptable.
speech use language
Nobody is capable of of free speech unless he knows how to use language, and such knowledge is not a gift: it has to learned and worked at. [p.93]
religion infinity kind
Between religion's this is and poetry's but suppose this is, there must always be some kind of tension, until the possible and the actual meet at infinity.