The Northrop Frye Quote Book. Northrop Frye

Address” (1984), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      You will perhaps not be surprised to learn that I have no use for the lame-brained hysterics who go around snatching books by Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro out of school libraries. I also resent the mindless cliché that the best way to sell a book is to ban it, which means that all its extra readers will be attracted to it for silly reasons.

      Creation and Recreation (1980), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.

      … however rationalized it may be censorship is always an attack on human intelligence and imagination and is always a sign of weakness, not strength, in those who enforce it.

      “Introduction to Canadian Literature” (1988), Northrop Frye’s Fiction and Miscellaneous Writings (2007), CW, 25.

      Censorship is itself a violent, or counterviolent, solution: it assumes that you’ve caught the real villain and are justified in doing what you like to him, which is precisely the fallacy of violence itself.

      “Violence and Television” (1975), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      The authority of open science is recognized in theory in both democratic and totalitarian societies, but both still try to control openness in historical writing by hiding or destroying the relevant documents.

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

      Censorship and democracy don’t mix, and there is no argument in favour of censorship that does not assume an antidemocratic social tendency.

      “Dr. Kinsey and the Dream Censor” (1948), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      Practically all movements of censorship are simply expressions of mob hysteria, and almost invariably focus on the very people whom genuine social concern should be regarding as allies instead of enemies.

      “Introduction to Art and Reality” (1986), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      Centennials

      The value of centenaries and similar observances is that they call attention, not simply to great men, but to what we do with our great men.

      “Blake after Two Centuries” (1957), Northrop Frye on Milton and Blake (2005), CW, 16.

      For the majority of people in North America, the most important thing that happened in 1867 was the purchase of Alaska from Russia by the United States.

      The Modern Century (1967), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      Centre & Circumference

      The proverb says that God’s centre is everywhere and his circumference nowhere, but in a human perspective the divine circumference would be everywhere too, as a centre has no identity without a circumference.

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

      Champlain, Samuel de

      In Orillia there’s a statue of Champlain, dressed like one of the three musketeers, with spurs (so useful for getting more speed out of a birch-bark canoe).

      “Reconciliation with Nature” (1976), Northrop Frye’s Fiction and Miscellaneous Writings (2007), CW, 25.

      Change

      Besides, if a radical reaction includes a good deal of hysteria, a conservative one is bound to include a good deal of inertia.

      “Teaching the Humanities Today” (1977), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      In a world where dynasties rise and fall at much the same rate as women’s hemlines, the dynasty and the hemline look much alike in importance, and get much the same amount of featuring in the news.

      The Modern Century (1967), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      What is connected with the universities is what is really happening: the political and economic charades also going on are what are called pseudo-events, created for and blown up by the news media to give us the illusion of living in history. The human lives behind these charades, of people losing their jobs or finding that they can no longer live on their pensions, certainly do not consist of pseudo-events. But they are not hot news items either.

      “The Authority of Learning” (1984), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      Chaos

      Chaos comes into the first verse of the Book of Genesis and keeps on going long past Melville.

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

      God screwed chaos for six days and separated on the seventh, panting. Chaos thereby split into cosmos, the child, and Schekinah, the surviving companion. The light and the dark, plentitude and vacancy.

      Entry, Notebook 44 (1986–91), 721, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.

      Chaplin, Charlie

      If films can survive indefinitely our grandchildren will probably ask some very awkward questions if we didn’t see the great Chaplin masterpieces when they were new, or did see them and missed the point.

      “The Great Charlie” (1941), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      Charity

      Charity is not only the greatest of virtues, but the only virtue there is.

      “Canadian and American Values” (1988), explaining that “charity” in the New Testament means “love,” Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      In a world like ours differences in faith are much less important than agreement in charity. Faith, or the rejection of faith, often revolves around the question, “Why would a good God permit so much evil and suffering?” Charity starts with the question, “Why do we permit so much evil and suffering?” and that is a question on which all men and women of good will can act instead of arguing in circles.

      “To Come to Light” (1986), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.

      Charms & Riddles

      If we stayed with the oracular world of charm, everything would seem solemn, awful, portentous, and the least breath of humour or irreverence would destroy the mood. If we stayed with the world of riddle, we should be subjected to an endless stream of irresponsible wisecracks.

      “Cycle and Apocalypse in Finnegans Wake” (1987), Northrop Frye on Twentieth-Century Literature (2010), CW, 29.

      Chaucer, Geoffrey

      By looking at Chaucer’s pieces we see an exceedingly clever versifier: by looking at his completed structures we see the greatness of his mind in something like its true perspective.

      “Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales” (1936), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      Chess

      A chess move is a decisive choice that may not abolish chance, but sets up a train of consequences that forces it to retreat into the shadows.

      Entry, Notebook 50 (1987–90), 313, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.

      Chicago

      It is such a cheerful, hospitable, adolescent city. They tell me that the clothing advertisers urge Chicagoans to get a metropolitan cut to their clothes to impress the hick visitors. This is typical Chicago.

      “NF to HK,” 17 Jun. 1933, The Correspondence of Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932–1939 (1996), CW, 1.

      Chicago World’s Fair

      It’s a World’s Fair all right, and very like the world — huge, pretentious, artificial,