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
infinity
We are always in the place of beginning; there is no advance in infinity.
imagination pieces educated
My subject is the educated imagination, and education is something that affects the whole person, not bits and pieces of him .
ego temptation stronger
The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a stronger temptation to the ego.
literature mythology humans
Every human society possesses a mythology which is inherited, transmitted and diversified by literature.
poetic literal primaries
The primary and literal meaning of the Bible, then, is its centripetal or poetic meaning.
supremacy
The supremacy of the verbal over the monumental has something about it of the supremacy of life over death.
dream feelings revolutionary
We have revolutionary thought whenever the feeling "life is a dream" becomes geared to an impulse to awaken from it.
fables tortoises tire
The fable says that the tortoise won in the end, which is consoling, but the hare shows a good deal of speed and few signs of tiring.
imagination situation rhetorical
We find rhetorical situations everywhere in life, and only our imaginations can get us out of them.
revolution rejects
Historically, a Canadian is an American who rejects the Revolution.
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.
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.