The Northrop Frye Quote Book. Northrop Frye

Canada, through most of its history, has been a strip of territory as narrow as Chile, besides being longer and more broken up.

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

      Canada & the United States

      But Canada has, for all practical purposes, no Atlantic seaboard.… To enter the United States is a matter of crossing an ocean; to enter Canada is a matter of being silently swallowed by an alien continent.

      “Conclusion to Literary History of Canada” (1965), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      Similarly, our undefended border is very effectively defended on one side, the United States being a highly protectionist country in culture as in other aspects of life, and the Canadian instinct for compromise has to make the best of it.

      “National Consciousness in Canadian Culture” (1976), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      There is an aged and now somewhat infirm joke to the effect that the United States has passed from barbarism to decadence without an intervening period of civilization. A parallel and possibly more accurate statement might be made of Canada: that it has passed from a pre-national to a post–national phase without ever having become a nation.

      “Culture as Interpenetration” (1982), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      An independent Canada would be much more useful to the United States itself than a dependent or annexed one would be, and it is of great importance to the United States to have a critical view of it centred in Canada, a view which is not hostile but is simply another view.

      “Conclusion to Literary History of Canada” (1965), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      Canada may be an American colony, as is often said, by me among others, but Canadians have never thought of the United States as a parental figure, like Britain, and analogies of youthful revolt and the like would be absurd.

      “Conclusion to Literary History of Canada” (1965), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      I was recently reading the letters of Wallace Stevens, and came across his remark that the imagination transforms reality, giving as his example the fact that people living in the United States become Americans. It struck me that no Canadian poet could have said this. People living in Canada may become Canadians up to a point, but up to a far more limited point.

      “Canadian Identity and Cultural Regionalism” (1970), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      A Canadian going to the United States to teach in a university there is often asked by his American students if he notices any difference. They expect the answer to be no, and nine-tenths of the time it is no, but the tenth time there is some point of discussion that suddenly makes him feel like a Finn in Russia or a Dane in Germany. His students have been conditioned from infancy to be citizens of a vast imperial power; he has been conditioned to watch, to take sides in decisions made elsewhere.

      “America: True or False?” (1969), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      What is resented in Canada about annexation to the United States is not annexation itself, but the feeling that Canada would disappear into a larger entity without having anything of any real distinctiveness to contribute to that entity: that, in short, if the United States did annex Canada it would notice nothing except an increase in natural resources.

      Preface, The Bush Garden (1971), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      In looking at two countries as closely related as Canada and the United States, no difference is unique or exclusive: we can point to nothing in Canada that does not have a counterpart, or many counterparts, south of the border. What is different is a matter of emphasis and of degree.

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

      What else is “distinctively Canadian”? Well, historically, a Canadian is an American who rejects the Revolution.

      “Letters in Canada: Poetry” (1953), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      It is an insult to Canada to have American authorities in charge of Canadian immigration who do not know the elementary facts of Canadian political life, and who cannot distinguish a Communist from a social-democrat.

      “Nothing to Fear but Fear” (1949), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      American students have been conditioned from infancy to think of themselves as citizens of one of the world’s great powers. Canadians are conditioned from infancy to think of themselves as citizens of a country of uncertain identity, a confusing past, and a hazardous future.

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

      Canadians are so closely identified with Americans in their political fortunes that to make the identification complete actually improves the perspective.

      “The Present Condition of the World” (1943), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

      Every aspect of Canadian culture has been affected by the enormously beneficent influence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

      “English Canadian Literature, 1929–1954” (1955), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      Canadian Content

      What I would like to see is ninety-five per cent Canadian attitude.

      “CRTC Guru” (1968–69), referring to CRTC’s rules regulating the balance between Canadian and foreign (i.e., American) content, Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      The CRTC has constantly been reminded, first by broadcasters and later by cable operators, that the majority of Canadians prefer American programs, including the brutal ones.

      “National Consciousness in Canadian Culture” (1976), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      Canadian Forum, The

      In short, the man with a liberal education will not have an integrated personality or be educated for living: he will be a chronically irritated man, probably one of that miserable band who read the Canadian Forum, which is always finding fault and viewing with alarm.

      “A Liberal Education” (1945), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      Canadian Identity

      I tend to think more and more as I get older that the only social identity that’s really worth preserving is a cultural identity. And Canada seems to me to have achieved that, so I don’t join with other people in lamenting the loss of a political identity.

      “Richard Cartwright and the Roots of Canadian Conservatism” (1984), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      All identity has a boundary, whether we call it Canada or the individual, and our social mythology keeps this walled and bound unit as its central structure.

      “Foreword to The Prospect of Change” (1965), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      Canada is the Switzerland of the twentieth century, surrounded by the great powers of the world and preserving its identity by having many identities.

      “Speech at the New Canadian Embassy, Washington” (1989), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      One disadvantage of living in Canada is that one is continually called upon to make statements about the Canadian identity, and Canadian identity is an eminently exhaustible subject.

      “National Consciousness in Canadian Culture” (1976), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.

      There have been many fables about people who made long journeys to find some precious object. The moral is often that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is in their own backyard. But this is not