The Northrop Frye Quote Book. Northrop Frye

and agreeably.

      “Gandhi” (1948), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      Astrology

      I have been studying astrology recently and found that I was born under the sign of Cancer, the Crab. This interested me at once, of course, as I saw there must be something in the science after all, so I read on and learned quite a bit about it.

      “NF to HK,” 25 Aug. 1932, The Correspondence of Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932–1939 (1996), CW, 1.

      There are many who “believe in” astrology, i.e., would like to feel that there is “something in it,” but I should imagine that relatively few of them are astronomers.

      “The Times of the Signs” (1973), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.

      Even at that I’m suspicious of astrology: it’s too close to the view that creation was made for man, a notion not only wrong but ultimately sick.

      Entry, Notebook 11e (1978), 38, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      Astronomy

      In my childhood I dreamed of becoming a great astronomer & discovering a new planet beyond Neptune that I was going to call Pluto.

      Entry, Notebook 3 (1946–48), 172, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      But then I like astronomy to be spectacular & obvious. I’ll take the galaxies millions of light years away on faith, or rather trust, and as for seeing, if I can see mountains on the moon I’m perfectly happy.

      Entry, 18 Aug. 1950, 555, after attending a lecture by astronomer Harlow Shapley and viewing through a telescope a galaxy and then the moons of Jupiter, Harvard University, The Diaries of Northrop Frye: 1942–1955 (2001), CW, 8.

      Atheism

      If we say, “There is a God,” we have suggested the possibility of saying, “There is no God,” and so in a sense have already said it. The most effective ideologies today, as said earlier, are those that have developed enough flexibility and tolerance to take account of this fact.

      “Concern and Myth,” Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (2008), CW, 26.

      Atlantis

      What’s under the Atlantic is what’s inside us: if we uncover it we either find a spring of living water or we get drowned in a new flood just for us.

      Entry, Notes 53 (1989–90), 27, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.

      Why does Atlantis have to be in the past? If it’s a myth, of course, it’s present, an example or warning.

      Entry, Notebook 24 (1970–72), 197, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.

      I’m no nearer understanding Atlantis or reincarnation symbolism, but I do understand more clearly that it polarizes the Bible in some way.

      Entry, Notebook 24 (1970–72), 224, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.

      The myth of Atlantis, as I’ve known from the beginning, is another version of the myth of the fall, except that those who deal with it usually try to place it in history, whereas it doesn’t really belong in history necessarily.

      Entry, Notes 53 (1989–90), 41, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.

      Plato dreams up an ideal state, with future overtones, then says it corresponds exactly to an anti-diluvian state that fell from grace.

      Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 313, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      Atom Bombs

      Man is a very frivolous animal, with a short memory and a limited imagination, and he can tie himself up in words to the point of persuading himself that dropping atom bombs on people he’s never seen is a kind of shrewd move in an exciting chess game.

      “Laurence Hyde, ‘Southern Cross,’ and ‘The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes’” (1952), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      I said I felt distressed at the thought of a city going up in smoke, but the thought of a chain-reaction blowing the whole world to pieces filled me with profound peace.

      Entry, 20 Feb. 1950, 130, an informal discussion with colleagues on “the H-bomb,” The Diaries of Northrop Frye: 1942–1955 (2001), CW, 8.

      When Russian and American spokesmen both tell us that nobody would start an atomic war because there would be no sense in such a thing and nobody could gain anything at all from it, we are not reassured. We simply do not believe that human society is as sane as that any more.

      “The View from Here” (1980), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      Atwood, Margaret

      Margaret Atwood, like the CN Tower, is a free-standing structure, and needs no patronizing props of reference to her sex or her nationality.

      “Margaret Eleanor Atwood” (1983), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      Audiences

      The writer has two centres of gravity: one in his own time and audience; the other in our time and in us. It is a mysterious but primary fact of literature that a poet remote from us in space and time and culture can still communicate his central vision to us, though we may admire him for reasons quite unintelligible to him or his age.

      “Tradition and Change in the Theory of Criticism” (1969), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      Any dramatist who knew his audience as well as Shakespeare would know that the important difference in it is not the difference between intelligent and stupid people, but the difference between intelligent and stupid responses to the play, both of which may exist in the same mind.

      “A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance; II, Making Nature Afraid” (1963), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Shakespeare and the Renaissance (2010), CW, 28.

      … to say that society should be tolerant is as fallacious as saying that the artist should be a good man. Both these things are true, but on different grounds. The role of the artist & the quality of art depends primarily on the quality of the audience’s imaginative response.

      Entry, Notebook 8 (1946–58), Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Renaissance Literature (2006), CW, 20.

      Austen, Jane

      Jane is a blind spot to me: I enjoy reading her for relaxation and I admire her skill and ingenuity, but I never feel much sense of cultural infusion, of the kind I require from a great writer.

      Entry, 23 Aug. 1942, 75, The Diaries of Northrop Frye: 1942–1955 (2001), CW, 8.

      Authority

      I believe that one of the intellectual activities of our time consists in trying to see what is behind the social and political façade of authority.

      “The Wisdom of the Reader” (1979), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      Every writer, past or present, big or little, is, by the act of writing, making a bid for authority, for filling a place in our imaginative experience that no one else can fill in quite the same way.

      “Literary Criticism” (1963), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.

      Authority is of the subject: this is what equalizes teacher & student.

      “On Education