Best Selling Books by Northrop Frye

A landmark work of literary criticism Northrop Frye''s Anatomy of Criticism is the magnum opus of one of the most important and influential literary theorists of the twentieth century. Breaking with the practice of close reading of individual texts, Frye seeks to describe a common basis for understanding the full range of literary forms by examining archetypes, genres, poetic language, and the relations among the text, the reader, and society. Using a dazzling array of examples, he argues that understanding "the structure of literature as a total form" also allows us to see the profoundly liberating effect literature can have.

This brilliant outline of Blake''s thought and commentary on his poetry comes on the crest of the current interest in Blake, and carries us further towards an understanding of his work than any previous study. Here is a dear and complete solution to the riddles of the longer poems, the so-called "Prophecies," and a demonstration of Blake''s insight that will amaze the modern reader. The first section of the book shows how Blake arrived at a theory of knowledge that was also, for him, a theory of religion, of human life and of art, and how this rigorously defined system of ideas found expression in the complicated but consistent symbolism of his poetry. The second and third parts, after indicating the relation of Blake to English literature and the intellectual atmosphere of his own time, explain the meaning of Blake''s poems and the significance of their characters.

First published in 1970, this collection is made up of a selection of essays composed between 1962 and 1968, written by distinguished humanist and literary critic Northrop Frye. The book is divided into two parts: one deals largely with the contexts of literary criticism; the other offers more specific studies of literary works in roughly historical sequence. One of the essays is Frye’s own elucidation of the development of his critical premises out of his early concern with the poetry of William Blake. Taken together, the essays offer a continuous and coherent argument, making a whole that is entirely equal to the sum of its parts.

In 1933, Northrop Frye was a recent university graduate, beginning to learn his craft as a literary essayist. By 1963, with the publication of The Educated Imagination, he had become an international academic celebrity. In the intervening three decades, Frye wrote widely and prodigiously, but it is in the papers and lectures collected in this installment of the Collected Works of Northrop Frye, that the genesis of a distinguished literary critic can be seen. Here is Frye tracing the first outlines of a literary cosmology that would culminate in The Anatomy of Criticism (1958) and shapeThe Great Code (1982) and Words with Power (1990). At the same time that Frye garnered such international acclaim, he was also a working university teacher, lecturing in the University of Toronto''s English Language and Literature program. In her lively introduction, Germaine Warkentin links Frye''s evolution as a critic with his love of music, his passionate concern for his students, and his growing professional ambition. The writings included in this volume show how Frye integrated ideas into the work that would consolidate the fame that Fearful Symmetry (1947) had first established.

Words with Power is the crowning achievement of the latter half of Northrop Frye''s career. Portions of the work can be found in Frye''s notebooks as far back as the mid-1960s when he had just finished Anatomy of Criticism, and he completed the book shortly before his death in 1991. Beyond summing up his ideas about the relation of the Bible to Western culture, Words with Power boldly confronts a host of questions ranging from the relationship between literature and ideology to the real meaning of words like ''spirit'' and ''faith.'' The first half of the ''double mirror'' structure looks at the language in which the Bible is written, arguing that it is identical to that of myth and metaphor. Frye suggests, therefore, that given this characteristic, the Bible should be read imaginatively rather than historically or doctrinally. However, he is also careful to point out the ways in which the Bible is more than a conventional work of fiction. The second half is an astonishing tour de force in which Frye demonstrates how both the Bible and literature revolve around four primary concerns of human life. This edition goes beyond the original in its documentation of Frye''s dazzlingly encyclopedic range of reference. Profound and searching, Words with Power is perhaps the most daring book of Frye''s career and one of the most exciting.

Offers fresh insights into ten of Shakespeare''s most popular plays, relating each of these works to others and discussing many of the central elements of Shakespearean drama

Preface xi Credits xv Abbreviations xvii Introduction xix The Modem Century 1 The Modern Century 3 I City of the End of Things 5 II Improved Binoculars 27 III Clair de lune intellectuel 48 The Arts 2 Current Opera: A Housecleaning 73 3 Ballet Russe 76 4 The Jooss Ballet 79 5 Frederick Delius 83 6 Three-Cornered Revival at Headington 87 7 Music and the Savage Breast 88 8 Men as Trees Walking 92 9 K.R. Srinivasa’s Lytton Strachey 96 10 The Great Charlie 98 11 Reflections at a Movie 103 12 Music in the Movies O08 13 Max Grafs Modern Music 112 14 Abner Dean’s It’s a Long Way to Heaven 113 15 Russian Art 114 16 Herbert Read’s The Innocent Eye 115 17 The Eternal Tramp 116 18 On Book Reviewing 123 19 Academy without Walls 126 20 Communications 134 21 The Renaissance of Books 140 22 Violence and Television 156 23 Introduction to Art and Reality 167 Politics, History, and Society 24 Pro Patria Mori 175 25 Wyndham Lewis: Anti-Spenglerian 178 26 War on the Cultural Front 184 27 Two Italian Sketches, 1939 I88 28 G.M. Young’s Basic 194 29 Revenge or Justice? 195 30 F.S.C. Northrop’s The Meeting of East and West 197 31 Wallace Notestein’s The Scot in History 201 32 Toynbee and Spengler 202 33 Gandhi 209 34 Ernst Jiinger’s On the Marble Cliffs 211 35 Dr. Kinsey and the Dream Censor 215 36 Cardinal Mindszenty 220 37 The Two Camps 222 38 Law and Disorder 224 39 Two Books on Christianity and History 226 40 Nothing to Fear but Fear 232 41 The Ideal of Democracy 235 42 The Church and Modern Culture 237 43 And There is No Peace 244 44 Caution or Dither? 246 45 Trends in Modern Culture 248 46 Regina versus the World 262 47 Oswald Spengler 265 48 Preserving Human Values 274 49 The War in Vietnam 282 50 The Two Contexts 283 51 The Quality of Life in the ‘7os 285 52 Spengler Revisited 297 53 The Bridge of Language 315 Notes 331 Emendations 381 Index 383

In the third published volume of Canadian literary critic Frye''s (1912-91) 77 holograph notebooks, the material is mostly from the 1970s, when he was writing the first of his books on the Bible, The Great Code. However, it begins with Notebook Three from the late 1940s in which he writes primarily on religious themes. It concludes with Notebook 23 from the middle 1980s, written between his first and second book on the Bible; and one from the 1960s devoted largely to his reading of Dante''s Purgatorio and the first ten cantos of the Paradiso. Altogether the volume contains 11 notebooks, three sets of typed notes, and a transcription of 24 lectures on The Mythological Framework of Western Culture in 1981-82. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

"The present volume includes talks Frye gave that were tape-recorded but for which there is no extant manuscript, taped interviews and responses to questions not included in the volume of interviews of the Collected Works; a previously undiscovered notebook and portions of others, including an extensive series of notes on romance (93,000 words); a brief in opposition to the Macpherson Report on undergraduate education at the University of Toronto; an address about the contribution of Victoria College to Canadian culture; reviews that were until recently unknown to me and the other editors of the Collected Works; a reply to a questionnaire from the American Scholar, and an early essay on poetic diction."--Page xiii

In the Alexander Lectures for 1965-66 at the University of Toronto, Dr. Frye describes the basis of the tragic vision as "being in time," in which death as "the essential event that gives shape and form to life ... defines the individual, and marks him off from the continuity of life that flows indefinitely between the past and the future." In Dr. Frye''s view, three general types can be distinguished in Shakespearean tragedy, the tragedy of order, the tragedy of passion, and the tragedy of isolation, in all of which a pattern of "being in time" shapes the action. In the first type, of which Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet are examples, a strong ruler is killed, replaced by a rebel-figure, and avenged by a nemesis-figure; in the second, represented by Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Troilus and Cressida, authority is split and the hero is destroyed by a conflict between social and personal loyalties; and in the third, Othello, King Lear, and Timon of Athens, the central figure is cut off from his world, largely as a result of his failure to comprehend the dynamics of that world. What all these plays show us, Dr. Frye maintains, is "the impact of heroic energy on the human situation" with the result that the "heroic is normally destroyed ... and the human situation goes on surviving." Fools of Time will be welcomed not only by many scholars who are familiar with Dr. Frye''s keen critical insight but also by undergraduates, graduates, high-school and university teachers who have long valued his work as a means toward a firmer grasp and deeper understanding of English literature.

The Double Vision originated in lectures delivered at Emmanuel College in the University of Toronto, the texts of which were revised and augmented.

"A world-renowned critic and scholar examines the continuing cultural importance of the Bible as the single most important influence in the imaginative tradition of Western art and literature. Frye rejects both dogmatic and literal interpretations while celebrating the uniqueness of the Bible as distinct from all other epics and sacred texts. His highly original analysis shows the Bible as redeeming history with a visionary poetic perspective that complements science in the understanding of man''s nature."--Book cover.

Reassesses the tradition and individual works of Western romance, from ancient Greece to the present, as constituting an imaginative universe in which man, moving between the idyllic and demonic, functions as a scriptural hero.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Brings together all of the writings of Northrop Frye, both published and unpublished, on the subject of Canadian literature and culture, from his early book reviews of the 1930s and 1940s through his cultural commentaries of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Northrop Frye discusses with David Cayley his life as a teacher and scholar, focusing on the university as "the engine room of society." This fascinating book concludes with Frye''s thoughts on religion and his writings on the Bible.

Describes the geography, plants and animals, history, economy, language, religions, culture, and people of the People''s Republic of China, home of one of the world''s oldest continuous civilizations.

Combines a 1981-82 series of twenty-four lectures by Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye and Canadian poet and classicist Jay Macpherson''s "Four Ages: the Classical Myths" published in 1962.

World-renowned critic and scholar Northrop Frye examines the Bible as the single most important influence in the imaginative tradition of Western art and literature. Frye rejects both the dogmatic and literal interpretations while celebrating the uniqueness of the Bible as distinct from all other epics and sacred texts. His highly original analysis shows the Bible as redeeming history with a visionary poetic perspective that complements science in the understanding of man’s nature.

Highlighting aspects of his scholarship seldom given sufficient emphasis, this new volume of the Collected Works of Northrop Frye documents Frye''s writings on the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (apart from those on William Blake, which are featured in other volumes). The volume includes Frye''s seminal 1956 essay "Towards Defining an Age of Sensibility" and the highly influential 1968 book A Study of English Romanticism. With these pieces and the other published and unpublished works contained in the volume, Frye changed the way the transition from the major Augustan figures to the Romantics was viewed. These works are a central part of Frye''s long and radical rethinking of the relation of romance and Romanticism and, through them, he emerges as a meticulous textual critic, teasing out the fine brushstroke effects in writers as varied as Boswell and Beddoes, Dickens and Dickinson. Imre Salusinszky''s introduction and annotation illuminates Frye''s writing and guides the reader along the path of Frye''s five-decade development of thought on Romanticism. This volume is an invaluable contribution to studies on Frye, as well as to Romantic and Victorian literature.

First published in 1970, this collection is made up of a selection of essays composed between 1962 and 1968, written by distinguished humanist and literary critic Northrop Frye. The book is divided into two parts: one deals largely with the contexts of literary criticism; the other offers more specific studies of literary works in roughly historical sequence. One of the essays is Fryee(tm)s own elucidation of the development of his critical premises out of his early concern with the poetry of William Blake. Taken together, the essays offer a continuous and coherent argument, making a whole that is entirely equal to the sum of its parts.

This philosophic inquiry into fundamental problems of literature and society is an immensely important addition to the canon of one of America''s most original and distinguished critics. What is the function of poetry? Of criticism? In what sense does the poet "know"? What is the relationship between a society and its art? Northrop Frye conducts us on an illuminating survey of these and other broad philosophic issues and offers many incidental insights into specific cultural phenomena as well. Such matters as Marxist aesthetics, Renaissance humanism, the relation of poetry to religion, the idea of progress, and the challenge of our contemporary youth culture are among the dozen interesting topics that engage his attention along the way. Mr. Frye identifies two predominating ideologies in Western culture which he designates as the "myth of concern" and the "myth of freedom." A fully developed myth of concern, he writes, "compromises everything that it most concerns a society to know." Its purpose is to hold society together, hence its deeply conservative character. The "myth of freedom," on the other hand, embodies the "liberal" attitudes of objectivity and respect for the individual. The author traces the relative importance of these two myths from Homeric Greece to the present, relating them to the types of art and government they foster, the roles of the poet and critic, and many other topics. The final thesis of the two myths: "To maintain a free and mature society we have to become aware of the tension between concern and freedom, and the necessity of preserving them both." In relating literature to this dialect, Mr. Frye ranges through the entire history of Western philosophy and literature--from Plato to Heidegger, from Sir Philip Sydney to Bob Dylan--showing us that his inquiring mind has once again gone beyond the field of literature, narrowly conceived, into the wider region of the history of ideas. He regards the artist and critic in generous terms--as persons not insulated from society but involved in it in the most profound sense and so provides a unique study informed by intelligence, broad learning, and grace and precision of style.

"This volume of essays, talks, reviews and papers span some fifty years of his long writing career." (Midwest)

Originally published in 1971,The Bush Garden features Northrop Frye’s timeless essays on Canadian literature and painting, and an introduction by bestselling author Lisa Moore. In this cogent collection of essays written between 1943 and 1969, formidable literary critic and theorist Northrop Frye explores the Canadian imagination through the lens of the country’s artistic output: prose, poetry, and paintings. Frye offers insightful commentary on the works that shaped a “Canadian sensibility,” and includes a comprehensive survey of the landscape of Canadian poetry throughout the 1950s, including astute criticism of the work of E. J. Pratt, Robert Service, Irving Layton, and many others. Written with clarity and precision,The Bush Garden is a significant cache of literary criticism that traces a pivotal moment in the country’s cultural history and the evolution of Frye’s thinking at various stages of his career. These essays are evidence of Frye’s brilliance, and cemented his reputation as Canada’s — and the world’s — foremost literary critic.

Here is a specialized dictionary of quotations based on the thoughts and writings of a single person. It is evidence that there is a Canadian writer of whom it may be said that we as his readers can grow up inside his work "without ever being aware of a circumference."

This collection of Northrop Frye''s writings on Shakespeare and the Renaissance spans forty years of his career as a university teacher, public critic, and major theorist of literature and its cultural functions. Extensive annotations and an in-depth critical introduction demonstrate Frye''s wide-ranging knowledge of Renaissance culture, the pivotal place of the Renaissance in his oeuvre, his impact on Renaissance criticism and on the Stratford Festival, and his continuing importance as a literary theorist. This volume brings together Frye''s extensive writings on Shakespeare and other Renaissance writers (excluding Milton, who is featured in other volumes), and includes major articles, introductions, public lectures, and four previously published books on Shakespeare. Frye''s insightful analyses offer not just a formidable knowledge of Renaissance culture but also a transformative experience, moving the reader imaginatively towards an experience of created reality.

''Frye was a person of uncommon gifts, and very little that came from his pen is without interest.'' So writes Robert Denham in his introduction to this unique collection of twenty-two papers written by Northrop Frye during his student years. Made public only after Frye''s death in 1991, all but one of the essays are published here for the first time. The majority of these papers were written for courses at Emmanuel College, the theology school of Victoria College at the University of Toronto. Essays such as ''The Concept of Sacrifice,'' ''The Fertility Cults,'' and ''The Jewish Background of the New Testament'' reveal the links between Frye''s early research in theology and the form and content of his later criticism. It is clear that even as a theology student Frye''s first impulse was always that of the cultural critic. The papers on Calvin, Eliot, Chaucer, Wyndham Lewis, and on the forms of prose fiction show Frye as precociously witty, rigorous, and incisive - a gifted writer who clearly found his voice before his last undergraduate year. David Lodge wrote in the New Statesman: ''There are not many critics whose twenty-year-old book reviews one can read with pleasure and instruction, but Frye is an exception to most rules.'' Northrop Frye''s student essays provide pleasure and instruction through their comments on the Augustinian view of history, on beauty, truth, and goodness, on literary symbolism and tradition.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This collection of 266 letters, cards, and telegrams that Helen Kemp and Northrop Frye wrote to each other forms a compelling narrative of their early relationship. The letters reveal Frye''s early talent as a writer.

This volume in the Collected Works provides a transcription of the seven books of diaries that Frye kept intermittently from 1942 until 1955.

"Although Northrop Frye''s first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), elevated the reputation of William Blake from the status of a minor eccentric to that of a major Romantic poet, Frye in fact saw Blake as a poet (and, consequently, himself as a critic) not of the Romantic period, but of the Renaissance. As such, Frye''s meditations on the Renaissance are particularly valuable. This volume collects six of Frye''s notebooks and five sets of his typed notes on subjects related to Renaissance literature." "Michael Dolzani divides these notes into three categories: those on Spenser and the epic tradition; those on Shakespearean drama and, more widely, the dramatic tradition from Old Comedy to the masque; and those on lyric poetry and non-fiction prose. The organization of this volume reflects the comprehensive study of Renaissance symbolism in three volumes that Frye proposed to the Guggenheim Foundation in 1949. Frye received a Guggenheim fellowship, but never completed this work; nevertheless, his application, part of which is also included here, is an important document. It not only reveals the outlines of Frye''s thinking about literature, it also uncovers his plans for his future creative life during the crucial period between his completion of Fearful Symmetry and his absorption in the writing of Anatomy of Criticism." "In addition to providing insight into Frye''s thinking process, the material collected here is of unique importance because much of it touches on topics not fully explored in his other published works."--Jacket.

"... twelve essays in which this visionary literary critic speaks specifically to the eternal act of creation, addressing the incessant need for literary revisioning." --Studies in Religion These essays, four of which are published here for the first time, reveal one of the most extraordinary minds of our time engaging a wide range of literary, cultural, and religious issues. Frye gave these addresses during the last decade of his life, and they reveal this distinguished critic speaking with wit and wisdom about the permanent forms of human civilization and engaging in the eternal act of creation.