The Northrop Frye Quote Book. Northrop Frye

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

      Our reaction to advertising is really a form of literary criticism. We don’t take it literally, and we aren’t supposed to: anyone who believed literally what every advertiser said would hardly be capable of managing his own affairs.

      “The Vocation of Eloquence,” The Educated Imagination (1963), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.

      Television advertising is entirely a monologue relying on the power of a visual medium to hold the body motionless and, if possible, spellbound.

      “Reviews of Television Programs for the Canadian Radio-Television Commission: Reflections on November 5th” (1970), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      The fiction need not be his own creation: anyone who believes advertising literally, for example, would be for all practical purposes a lunatic.

      “On Teaching Literature” (1972), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      Advertising is halfway between: its conventions may be accepted by a ten-year-old but must be greatly weakened by twenty if one is to retain any self-control at all in a consumerist society. (That’s why it’s so important to break the hold of the rhetoric of advertising as soon as possible.)

      Entry, Notebook 50 (1987–90), 600, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.

      The two words practical and useful do not of course mean quite the same thing: some forms of verbal technology, like preaching, may be useful without always being practical; others, like advertising, may be practical without always being useful.

      “Humanities in a New World” (1958), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      Advertising, propaganda, the speeches of politicians, popular books and magazines, the clichés of rumour, all have their own kind of pastoral myths, quest myths, hero myths, sacrificial myths, and nothing will drive these shoddy constructs out of the mind except the genuine forms of the same thing.

      “Elementary Teaching and Elementary Scholarship” (1963), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      For the deeply disaffected in our society, advertising is propaganda, and one’s response should be that of an enemy of “the system” and not of any player of games.

      “Reviews of Television Programs for the Canadian Radio-Television Commission: Reflections on November 5th” (1970), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.

      Aesthetics

      Every art, however, needs its own critical organization, and poetics will form a part of aesthetics as soon as aesthetics becomes the unified criticism of all the arts instead of whatever it is now.

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

      Africa

      The revolt of Africa hasn’t yet come, but is certainly coming.

      Entry, 23 Jan. 1949, 116, The Diaries of Northrop Frye: 1942–1955 (2001), CW, 8.

      Afterlife

      So many people are repelled by the idea of a life after death that if there is a life after death a lot of people are going to be damn mad. But then a lot of people are damn mad about having been born into this world, though few of them, and those mostly suicides, get to the point of formulating it in those terms.

      Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 293, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      There even used to be a version, or perversion, of Christianity which asserted that real life began after death. This is not much in fashion now, but in its day it doubtless encouraged some people to die without ever having come alive.

      “Baccalaureate Sermon” (1967), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.

      Aging

      The only thing that keeps me reconciled to life in my seventies is my realization that everything goes in cycles.

      “Criticism in Society” (1985), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.

      The body must go helplessly from youth to age: the imagination, though of course it is influenced by this, may be contemplative at ten or youthful at eighty.

      “Part Two: The Development of the Symbolism,” Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (1947, 2004), CW, 14.

      At seventy-five the sense of perspective becomes more important than the sense of discovery. And yet the perspective includes a recapturing of discovery: the sun has been told often enough that it shines on nothing new, but it knows better, and keeps rising as placidly as ever.

      “Preface to On Education” (1988), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      But as our personal future narrows, we become more aware of another dimension of time entirely, and may even catch glimpses of the powers and forces of a far greater creative design. Perhaps when we think we are working for the future we are really being contained in the present, though an infinite present, eternity in an hour, as Blake calls it. Perhaps too that present is also a presence, not an impersonal cause in which to lose ourselves, but a person in whom to find ourselves again.

      “Address on Receiving the Royal Bank Award” (1978), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.

      As life goes on, the future becomes steadily more predictable, & the life consequently less interesting. Children fascinate us; old men bore us because they conceal no surprises.

      Entry, Notebook 3 (1946–48), 146, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      Agnosticism

      It is curious but significant that “gnostic” and “agnostic” are both dirty words in the Christian tradition: wisdom is not identified either with knowledge or with the denial of knowledge.

      “Metaphor I,” The Great Code (1982), The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (2006), CW, 19.

      The advantages of being an agnostic are obvious: one does not have to pretend that one knows things that in fact one does not know.

      “Baccalaureate Sermon” (1967), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.

      Air

      Air is the invisible medium by which things become visible, hence the spiritual is the power of making things visible, the medium of creative energy.

      “Pistis and Mythos” (1972), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.

      But as the function of air is to be invisible, in order to make the physical world visible, so the spiritual world is invisible in order to make spiritual experience possible and visible to the participant.

      “On the Bible” (1989), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.

      Now imagine a world where you could see the air: what you’d have is the image of fog, mist or vapour.

      Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 503, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.

      The Spirit of the Bible is to the conscious world what the air is to the physical world. In the physical world, the things we see are visible only because the air is invisible. For the corresponding reason, the Spirit has to be invisible to consciousness, but is none the less a personal presence, personal as we are, present as everything around us is.

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

      Alcohol

      I find myself unusually sensitive to alcohol: I feel perceptibly more stupid