The Northrop Frye Quote Book. Northrop Frye

it’s simply a matter of numbers — that millions of people are more confused than thousands of people.

      “Between Paradise and Apocalypse” (1978), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      Conscience

      Consciousness is released by scientia: conscience is released by imagination.

      Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 109, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      By conscience I mean the informing power of moral experience.

      Entry, Notebook 19 (1964–67), 138, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.

      Consciousness

      The revolution of consciousness against routine is the starting point of all mental activity, and the centre of mental activity is imagination, the power of transforming “reality” into awareness of reality. Man can have no freedom except what begins in his own awareness of his condition.

      “The Realistic Oriole: A Study of Wallace Stevens” (1957), Northrop Frye on Twentieth-Century Literature (2010), CW, 29.

      In our day the intensifying of consciousness, in the form of techniques of meditation and the like, has become a heavy industry. I have been somewhat puzzled by the extent to which this activity overlooks or evades the fact that all intensified language sooner or later turns metaphorical, and that literature is not only the obvious but the inescapable guide to higher journeys of consciousness.

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

      The idea that the human consciousness lives inside a universe of words, which is in turn inside the universe of nature, has always been very central to me. Of course the difficulty with the word “universe” is that it suggests something spatial, whereas the true verbal universe is a conflict of powers and, consequently, exists in time as well as space.

      “Northrop Frye in Conversation” (1989), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      It is the articulated worlds of consciousness, the intelligible and imaginative worlds, that are at once the reward of freedom and the guarantee of it.

      The Critical Path: An Essay on the Social Context of Literary Criticism (1971), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.

      Consciousness in a world which without consciousness is only a mechanism: damn uncomfortable situation.

      Entry, Notes 58-5 (c. 1985), discussing Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Renaissance Literature (2006), CW, 20.

      Hence while the production of culture may be, like ritual, a half-involuntary imitation of organic rhythms or processes, the response to culture is, like myth, a revolutionary act of consciousness.

      “Tentative Conclusion” (1957), Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (2006), CW, 22.

      Consciousness is to the unconscious as the earth’s crust is to the earth, & it has taken exactly the same length of time to develop.

      Entry, Notebook 3 (1946–48), 94, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      It is fascinating to become conscious of all one’s unconscious processes in order to become unconscious of them again: it’s a new birth, for though a very young baby can be trained to correct automatisms, they break up when the age of self-will begins, and a change of form or style is needed in life as in athletics.

      Entry, Notebook 3 (1946–48), 36, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      The consciousness doesn’t know what the hell goes on in the body: its function is to escape from the body, hence the cooperating essence notion. Or it can control its own version of the body, as in yoga.

      Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 237, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      Consciousness is the unreality which transforms reality; life is the unreality which transforms the inanimate; time is the unreality which transforms space.…

      Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 362, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      The world of waking consciousness represents, for the creative imagination, a low level of reality.

      Entry, Notebook 54-8 (late 1972–77), 27, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Romance (2004), CW, 15.

      Our waking existence is a continuum: sleep and dreams have beginnings and ends, but when we wake up again we rejoin the continuum.

      “The Renaissance of Books” (1973), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.

      There is one consciousness that subjects itself to the text and understands, and another that, so to speak, overstands. It is only the possession of the latter that makes the operation of reading worthwhile: without it a reader is a pedant who understands but does not comprehend.

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