The Northrop Frye Quote Book. Northrop Frye
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the Order Right” (1978), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
Read Blake or go to hell: that’s my message to the modern world.
“NF to HK,” 23 Apr. 1935, The Correspondence of Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932–1939 (1996), CW, 1.
Blavatsky, H.P.
Yet The Secret Doctrine, whatever else it is, is a very remarkable essay on the morphology of symbols, and the charlatanism of its author is less a reflection on her than on the age that compelled her to express herself in such devious ways.
“Yeats and the Language of Symbolism” (1947), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.
Works based on an interconnection of oracular poetry and prose commentary are usually found in or near the area of religion (even Madame Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine takes this form).
“The Well-Tempered Critic (II)” (1961), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.
… no reputable scientist has had the influence on the poetry of the last century that Swedenborg or Blavatsky has had.
“New Directions from Old” (1960), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.
If Blake had told us that he had gone to visit the wise men of the East and had learned from them the doctrines which he has set down in his poems, we should know what he meant, or ought to by now. When Madame Blavatsky tells us the same thing we are not sure what she means.
“Part Three: The Final Synthesis,” Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (1947, 2004), CW, 14.
Body
It also leaves the human mind as a function of the body, for man has received his body from nature, and his mind is his unique instrument for achieving a harmonious and comfortable adjustment to nature.
“Trends in Modern Culture” (1952), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.
I think as long as the human body has a top and a bottom it’s likely to be read into the symbolism of the mythological universe that man lives in.
“Symbolism in the Bible” (1981–82), Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
Boehme, Jakob
It has been said of Boehme that his books are like a picnic to which the author brings the words and the reader the meaning. The remark may have been intended as a sneer at Boehme, but it is an exact description of all works of literary art without exception.
“Part Three: The Final Synthesis,” Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (1947, 2004), CW, 14.
Books
The book qua book is not linear: we follow a line while we are reading it, but the book itself is a stationary visual focus of a community.
“The Search for Acceptable Words” (1973), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.
It seems to me that the printed book, with its established text and its mechanically accurate reproduction, is the inevitable form of the verbal classic or model, in whatever age it is produced.
“Comment” (1961), Northrop Frye on Twentieth-Century Literature (2010), CW, 29.
It is a common academic failing to dream of writing the perfect book, and then, because no achievement can reach perfection, not writing it.
“Humanities in a New World” (1958), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
… the book individualizes its audience.…
“Communications” (1970), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.
The book happens to be the most efficient technological instrument that the human mind has ever devised, and consequently it will always be here, at the centre of our technology, no matter what else we do.
“Back to the Garden” (1982), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
The tremendous efficiency and economy of the book has once again demonstrated itself. It’s the world’s most patient medium, for one thing. It doesn’t go away. It comes back with exactly the same message no matter how often you consult it.
“The Scholar in Society” (1983), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
… nobody believes that a book is an object: it’s a focus of verbal energy.
Entry, Notes 53 (1989–90), 176, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.
The psychological effect of studying such a work as Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind in paperback seems to me to be quite different from studying the same book in a hard cover. And by dramatizing the book as intellectual tool, the paperback also dramatized the extraordinary effectiveness of the book, the fact that, familiar and unobtrusive as it is, the book is one of the most efficient technological instruments ever developed in human history.
“The Renaissance of Books” (1973), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.
Now that society, after some years of reeling from the impact of television, is beginning to bring it under control, we can see more clearly that the book is the chief technological device that makes democracy and the open society continuously possible.
“The Renaissance of Books” (1973), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2001), CW, 11.
But the book is actually a companion in dialogue: it helps to structure and make sense of the flood of automatic gabble that keeps rolling through the mind. This interior monologue, as it is called, never relates to other people, however often it is poured over them. Further, a book stays where it is, and does not vanish into ether or the garbage bin like the mass media.
“Preface to On Education” (1988), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
So the book becomes the focus of a community, as more and more people read it and are affected by it. It moves in the opposite direction from the introversion of what has been well called “the lonely crowd,” where no one can communicate with his neighbour because he is too close to him mentally to have anything to say.
“Preface to On Education” (1988), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Good books may instruct, but bad ones are more likely to inspire.
“Auguries of Experience” (1987), “The Secular Scripture” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976–1991 (2006), CW, 18.
What we’d never see except in a book is often what we go to books to find.
“The Keys to Dreamland,” The Educated Imagination (1963), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.
The document is also the focus of a community, the community of readers, and while this community may be restricted to one group for centuries, its natural tendency is to expand over the community as a whole. Thus it is only writing that makes democracy technically possible.
“Communications” (1970), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.
It is necessary for one deeply interested in books to acquire the detachment from one’s reading that ordinary people have who are not much interested in them: to have something of their massive indifference which is not blown about by every wind of doctrine.
Entry, Notebook 3 (1946–48), Northrop Frye Newsletter, Fall 2000.
The success of a book that takes no risks is not worth achieving.
Entry, Notebook 47 (1989–90), 17, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture