Northrop Frye Achievements, Author Biography, Trivia, and Movies

Herman Northrop Frye, CC FRSC was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, Fearful Symmetry , which led to the reinterpretation of the poetry of William Blake. His lasting reputation rests principally on the theory of literary criticism that he developed in Anatomy of Criticism , one of the most important works of literary theory published in the twentieth century. American critic Harold Bloom commented at the time of its publication that Anatomy established Frye as...
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quick facts

Birthdate:	July 14, 1912
Birthplace:	Sherbrooke
Date of death:	January 23, 1991
Education:	University of Toronto
Religion:	United Church of Canada

Honors and Awards

Year	Award	Work
1986	Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction	Northrop Frye on Shakespeare
1986	Nominated - Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction	Northrop Frye on Shakespeare

Written works by Northrop Frye

Anatomy of Criticism
The Well-Tempered Critic
The Educated Imagination
La parole souveraine
The double vision

Title	Published	Genre
Anatomy of Criticism	1957
The Well-Tempered Critic
The Educated Imagination
La parole souveraine
The double vision
Le grand code
The Tempest
The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 10: Northrop Frye on literature and society, 1936-1989	2002
The bush garden
The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 11: Northrop Frye on modern culture	2003
The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 9: The "third book" notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964-1972	2002
Words With Power
Northrop Frye, Myth and Metaphor
The great code
The correspondence of Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932-1939	1996
The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 4: Northrop Frye on Religion	2000
Divisions on a ground
A natural perspective
The Secular Scripture
Spiritus Mundi
Creation and recreation
Northrop Frye in conversation
Biblical and classical myths
Northrop Frye unbuttoned
The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vols 5-6: Northrop Frye's late notebooks, 1982-1990	2003
Culture and the national will
study of English romanticism
Some reflections on Life and habit
Anatomie de la critique
Five essays on Milton's epics
Lexis and Melos
The critical path
English Canadian literature, 1929-1954
Selected Poetry and Prose of William Blake
Wallace Stevens and the variation form
Design for learning
stubborn structure
Blake Tcv
Myth of Deliverence Frye
Edwin John Pratt, 1882-1964
Mito metafora simbolo
Blake
The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 8: The Diaries of Northrop Frye, 1942-1955	2001
camino crítico
Criticism as education
siècle de l'innovation
Preface to an uncollected anthology
modern century
No uncertain sounds
escritura profana
The return of Eden
The World in a Grain of Sand
cultural development of Canada
On teaching literature
Poetry and design in William Blake
Pouvoirs de l'imagination
Reflections on the Canadian literary imagination
typology of Paradise regained
Charles Bruce Sissons, 1879-1965
culture face aux media
Harper handbook to literature
Three meanings of symbolism
Analyse der Literaturkritik
Anatomia de La Critica
Recognition in The winter's tale
On education
scrittura secolare
By liberal things
Myth and Symbol
Towards a theory of cultural history
The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 16: Northrop Frye on Milton and Blake	2005
duplice visione
A World Remade
T. S. Eliot
Characterization in Shakespearian comedy
Notes for a commentary on Milton
Fables of identity
Yeats and the language of symbolism
morality of scholarship
Critcal Path
eternal act of creation
function of criticism at the present time
Shakespeares Vollendung
Comic myth in Shakespeare
Mythologizing Canada
realistic oriole
estructura inflexible de la obra literaria
El Gran Codigo
Forming fours
Romanticism Reconsidered
Sound and poetry
structure of imagery in The faerie queene
Fearful Symmetry	1947	Poetry
Blake
Fools of time
A glorious and terrible life with you
The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 24: Interviews with Northrop Frye	2008
The morality of scholarship
The myth of deliverance
Northrop Frye on culture and literature

Northrop Frye quotes

The pursuit of beauty is much more dangerous nonsense than the pursuit of truth or goodness, because it affords a stronger temptation to the ego.
- Northrop Frye
Between religion's this is and poetry's but suppose this is, there must always be some kind of tension, until the possible and the actual meet at infinity.
- Northrop Frye
Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.
- Northrop Frye
In our day the conventional element in literature is elaborately disguised by a law of copyright pretending that every work of art is an invention distinctive enough to be patented.
- Northrop Frye

Places Northrop Frye has lived

Map showing Places Lived by Northrop Frye

Marker	Location	Population
A	Sherbrooke	147,427

People who influenced Northrop Frye

Giambattista Vico

Giovanni Battista Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist. A critic of modern rationalism and apologist of classical antiquity, Vico's magnum opus is Scienza Nuova , often published in English as New Science. Vico is a precursor of systemic and...
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William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the...
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Frequently Asked Questions

Q:
Where did Northrop Frye go to school?
A:
Northrop Frye went to University of Toronto.
Q:
What religion did Northrop Frye practice?
A:
United Church of Canada was Northrop Frye's chosen religion.
Q:
What is a popular quote by Northrop Frye?
A:
Noteworthy quotations include: "The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones."
Q:
In what line of work did Northrop Frye specialize?
A:
Northrop Frye was an accomplished philosopher.
Q:
Who was an important influence on Northrop Frye?
A:
Giambattista Vico and William Blake inspired Northrop Frye.
Q:
What popular books have been published by author, Northrop Frye?
A:
Popular works include:
- The Educated Imagination
- La parole souveraine
- The double vision
- Le grand code
- The Tempest
- Northrop Frye on literature and society, 1936-1989
- The bush garden