The Northrop Frye Quote Book. Northrop Frye

and tyranny, but if he did the Ayatollah would certainly be howling in one of them forever.

      Entry, Notes 53 (1989–90), 162, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.

      B

      Babel

      The society of power always tends to resemble the pyramid or tower of Babel: the society of love tends to resemble the communion table.

      “The Church: Its Relation to Society” (1949), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.

      Babel is action with confused words.

      Entry, Notebook 44 (1986–91), 599, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.

      Babies

      The parents of a new baby are proud of its novelty; they may even speak of it as unique; but the source of their pride is the fact that it is a recognizable human being, and conforms to a prescribed convention.

      “Nature and Homer” (1958), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.

      Bach, J.S.

      I’m probably just nutty, but the 1st movement of the 6th Brandenburg Suite has something sinister about it to me, as though a race of superhuman Robots, cultivated but ruthless, were marching along at a terrific speed to wipe us out.

      Entry, Notebook 5 (1935–42), 17, Northrop Frye’s Fiction and Miscellaneous Writings (2007), CW, 25.

      I think Bach is the great Protestant poet of the Pathos: not only two Passions, but even the B minor centres on the Kyrie and the Crucifixion.

      Entry, Notebook 5 (1935–42), 22, Northrop Frye’s Fiction and Miscellaneous Writings (2007), CW, 25.

      If we are listening to music, let us say, on the level of Bach or Mozart, the response keeps shifting from the personal to the impersonal. On the one hand we feel that this is Bach, that it couldn’t possibly be anyone else. On the other hand, there are moments when Bach disappears, and what we feel is: this is the voice of music itself; this is what music was created to say. At that level, we are not hearing the music so much as recognizing it.

      “The Teacher’s Source of Authority” (1978), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      Back to Basics

      I distrust all slogans of the “back to basics” type because I distrust anything that stars with “back to.” That is, I know that what is called a pastoral myth is operating — that at one time people were much better taught than they are now. I simply don’t believe that.

      “The Scholar in Society” (1983), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      Ballet

      The ballet cannot remain permanently in fairyland — the satiric attitude is too important and essential to contemporary art for that.

      “Ballet Russe” (1935), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      Baptism

      Just as the Eucharist in Christianity is founded on the metaphorical basis of food and drink, so baptism becomes the physical image of spiritual cleanliness, the separating of the true individual from the excreta of original sin.

      “Third Variation: The Cave,” Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (1990), CW, 26.

      Baseball

      There is certainly no evidence that baseball has descended from a ritual of human sacrifice, but the umpire is quite as much of a pharmakos as if it had: he is an abandoned scoundrel, a greater robber than Barabbas; he has the evil eye; the supporters of the losing team scream for his death.

      “First Essay: Historical Criticism: Theory of Modes” (1957), Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (2006), CW, 22.

      Beat Movement

      The beat philosophy may be wrong — that is, it may be crazy itself instead of merely making use of craziness — but its symbolism is a contemporary cultural force to be reckoned with.

      “World Enough Without Time” (1959), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.

      Beauty

      The beautiful has the same relation to the diminutive that the sublime has to bigness, and is closely related to the sense of the intricate and exquisite.

      “First Essay: Historical Criticism: Theory of Modes” (1957), Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (2006), CW, 22.

      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.

      “Second Essay: Ethical Criticism: Theory of Symbols” (1957), Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (2006), CW, 22.

      The progress of criticism has a good deal to do with recognizing beauty in a greater and greater variety of phenomena and situations and works of art. The ugly, in proportion, tends to become whatever violates primary concern.

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

      The cult of beauty, then, is reactionary: it is continually setting up barriers to the conquest of experience by art, and limits the variety of expression in art wherever it can.

      “Yeats and the Language of Symbolism” (1947), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.

      Identity is love; difference beauty.

      Entry, Notebook 50 (1987–90), 77, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.

      When we speak of the human body as beautiful we mean a body of someone in good physical condition between about eighteen and thirty, and when Dégas expresses interest in thick-bottomed matrons squatting in hip-baths, we confuse the shock to our sense of propriety with a shock to our sense of beauty.

      “Yeats and the Language of Symbolism” (1947), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.

      The notion that thinking the world is beautiful has actual survival value may have nothing in it, but it’s worth thinking about. Otherwise, why do we call both art and nature beautiful? It seems absurd on the face of it to apply the same term to a Mozart divertimento and some cutie in a bathing suit.

      Entry, Notes 53 (1989–90), 50, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.

      Beauty Contests

      A beauty contest is a narcissistic middle-class ritual: the contestants have the immobility, the fixed smiles, the mechanical responses, the sense of remoteness, of wax mannequins in a shop window, which have much the same social function.

      “Reviews of Television Programs for the Canadian Radio-Television Commission: Reflections on Television … November 1971–March 1972” (1972), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      Because

      … as I have tried to show elsewhere, nothing can follow “because” except some kind of pseudo-critical moral anxiety.

      “Criticism, Visible and Invisible” (1964), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.

      Beckett, Samuel

      The dramatic convention parodied in Waiting for Godot is clearly the act that killed vaudeville, the weary dialogue of two faceless figures who will say anything to put off leaving the stage.

      “The Nightmare Life in Death” (1960), Northrop Frye on Twentieth-Century