The Northrop Frye Quote Book. Northrop Frye

and it is bound to revive sooner or later, if only as an aspect of the junk-antique business.

      “The Renaissance of Books” (1973), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2001), CW, 11.

      There are signs that in America and Britain, as in France, the paperbound book will become the salvation of the impoverished intellectual.

      “The Church and Modern Culture” (1950), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      I have finished eleven books so far, but I have never finished any of them with the sense that I had succeeded or that I had achieved anything. I always finish them with a sense that they were simply being abandoned.…

      “The Question of ‘Success’” (1967), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      A good book must delight and it must instruct. Anyone who desires to quarrel with or qualify that statement should take up some other occupation.

      “On Book Reviewing” (1949), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      Borduas, Paul-Émile

      For Borduas, the human mind contained an it as well as an I or ego, and this It was what he felt needed expression.

      “Canadian Culture Today” (1977), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      Boredom

      I know it’s a difficult thing, but the great test of maturity is knowing when one is bored. I think that people are really bored out of their minds by what they get from the news media.

      “The Great Test of Maturity” (1986), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      A man is bored because he bores himself.

      “Leisure and Boredom” (1963), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      Borges, Jorge Luis

      One of the wisest and shrewdest men of our time, the Argentine writer Borges, has remarked that literature not only begins in a mythology but also ends in one.

      “Tradition and Change in the Theory of Criticism” (1969), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      Boston

      When I was growing up in the Maritime Provinces during the [1920s], there was a strong political loyalty to Confederation, but an even stronger sense that Boston was our real capital, and that the Maritimes formed the periphery of New England, or what was often called “the Boston states.”

      “Canadian Culture Today” (1977), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      Bourgeois

      The word “bourgeois” is practically synonymous with creative man: the middle class has produced culture and civilization alike.

      Entry, Notebook 31 (late 1946–50), 8, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Romance (2004), CW, 15.

      The implication, which I’ve always accepted, is that God’s aim is to be a bourgeois, the middle class of the middle world, which means after upper & lower unrealities have vanished.

      Entry, Notebook 50 (1987–90), 578, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.

      What I am expounding may be called a bourgeois liberal view, which throughout my lifetime has never been regarded as an “advanced” view. But it may begin to look more central with the repudiation of Marxism in Marxist countries, the growing uneasiness with the anti-intellectualism in American life, and the steadily decreasing dividends of terrorism in Third World Countries.

      The Double Vision (1991), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.

      General attitude toward life: That of a liberal bourgeois intellectual, which I consider the flower of humanity.

      “Chatelaine’s Celebrity I.D.” (1982), Interviews with Northrop Frye, CW, 24.

      Breath

      Breathing is the most primary of all concerns, the act marking the transition from the embryo to the baby, and our most continuous activity thereafter. We can go for days without food, or for a lifetime without sex, but ten minutes without breathing and we “expire.”

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

      British Empire

      There is a great deal to be said for the British Commonwealth, but everything connected with the British Empire, from the Indian question to the defence of Singapore & Hong Kong, is entirely vicious.

      Entry, Notebook 42a (1942–44), 5, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Romance (2004), CW, 15.

      Broadcasting

      I think the combination of what are called private broadcasters and of nationally subsidized broadcasting is a rather healthy thing for a country.

      “The Primary Necessities of Existence” (1985), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      Browning, Robert

      At the end, when English becomes a long-dead language, it is not difficult to imagine a professor in the remote future, who does not altogether understand the true genius of our tongue, saying: “This man was the greatest of all, for the qualities of the other great ones are combined and blended in him.”

      “Robert Browning: An Abstract Study” (1932–33), Northrop Frye’s Student Essays, 1932–1938 (1997), CW, 3.

      Buddhism

      Xy [Christianity] stands for the triumph over death; Buddhism for the triumph over birth. The latter is a Thanatos vision because death is the only visible symbol of Nirvana, just as life after death, or rebirth, is the only visible symbol of heaven.

      Entry, Notebook 12 (1968–70), 420, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.

      The Buddhists keep saying, with tremendous and unending prolixity, that the subject-object duality is horseshit. Okay, it’s horseshit: what’s so infernally difficult about it. The fact that it’s so difficult to overcome derives from the fact that the metaphorical kernel of subject & object is the contrast of life & death. The person from whom that’s disappeared really is a sage.

      Entry, Notebook 44 (1986–91), 109, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.

      Buddha promises an unborn world; Jesus a paradise or unfallen world.

      Entry, Notebook 6 (1967–68), 2, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.

      Bultmann, Rudolf

      I don’t understand the twentieth-century attraction for these antiseptic sounding words beginning with “de.” I don’t know why Bultmann speaks of demythologizing the Bible when he means remythologizing it. And I don’t understand in literary criticism why Derrida speaks of deconstruction when what he means is reconstruction. But that’s just original sin.

      “Symbolism in the Bible” (1981–82), Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      Bureaucracy

      I think the only government of which the human race is capable is more or less efficient or corrupt bureaucracy. The degrees of efficiency and corruption are what make the difference.

      “Towards an Oral History of the University of Toronto” (1982), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      The work of most middle-class people today consists mainly in the polluting of paper, or what is known as filling out forms.

      “The Responsibilities of the Critic” (1976), “The Secular Scripture” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976–1991