Northrop Frye In Conversation

Northrop Frye discusses with David Cayley his life as a teacher and scholar, focusing on the university as "the engine room of society." This fascinating book concludes with Frye's thoughts on religion and his writings on the Bible.

"Although Northrop Frye's first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), elevated the reputation of William Blake from the status of a minor eccentric to that of a major Romantic poet, Frye in fact saw Blake as a poet (and, consequently, himself as a critic) not of the Romantic period, but of the Renaissance. As such, Frye's meditations on the Renaissance are particularly valuable. This volume collects six of Frye's notebooks and five sets of his typed notes on subjects related to Renaissance literature." "Michael Dolzani divides these notes into three categories: those on Spenser and the epic tradition; those on Shakespearean drama and, more widely, the dramatic tradition from Old Comedy to the masque; and those on lyric poetry and non-fiction prose. The organization of this volume reflects the comprehensive study of Renaissance symbolism in three volumes that Frye proposed to the Guggenheim Foundation in 1949. Frye received a Guggenheim fellowship, but never completed this work; nevertheless, his application, part of which is also included here, is an important document. It not only reveals the outlines of Frye's thinking about literature, it also uncovers his plans for his future creative life during the crucial period between his completion of Fearful Symmetry and his absorption in the writing of Anatomy of Criticism." "In addition to providing insight into Frye's thinking process, the material collected here is of unique importance because much of it touches on topics not fully explored in his other published works."--Jacket.

Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye are two of Canada's central cultural figures, colleagues and rivals whose careers unfolded in curious harmony even as their intellectual engagement was antagonistic. Poet, novelist, essayist and philosopher B.W. Powe, who studied with both of these formidable and influential intellectuals, presents an exploration of their lives and work in Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye: Apocalypse and Alchemy. Powe considers the existence of a unique visionary tradition of Canadian humanism and argues that McLuhan and Frye represent fraught but complementary approaches to the study of literature and to the broader engagement with culture. Examining their eloquent but often acid responses to each other, Powe exposes the scholarly controversies and personal conflicts that erupted between them, and notably the great commonalities in their writing and biographies. Using interviews, letters, notebooks, and their published texts, Powe offers a new alchemy of their thought, in which he combines the philosophical hallmarks of McLuhan's “The medium is the message” and Frye's “the great code.”

The widespread opinion is that Northrop Frye’s influence reached its zenith in the 1960s and 1970s, after which point he became obsolete, his work buried in obscurity. This almost universal opinion is summed up in Terry Eagleton’s 1983 rhetorical question, "Who now reads Frye?" In The Reception of Northrop Frye, Robert D. Denham catalogues what has been written about Frye – books, articles, translations, dissertations and theses, and reviews – in order to demonstrate that the attention Frye’s work has received from the beginning has progressed at a geomantic rate. Denham also explores what we can discover once we have a fairly complete record of Frye’s reception in front of us – such as Hayden White’s theory of emplotments applied to historical writing and Byron Almén’s theory of musical narrative. The sheer quantity of what has been written about Frye reveals that the only valid response to Eagleton’s rhetorical question is "a very large and growing number," the growth being not incremental but exponential.

Essays on literary criticism.

It is often forgotten that Northrop Frye, a scholar known chiefly for his books and articles, was also a gifted speaker who was never reluctant to be interviewed. This collection of 111 interviews and discussions with the critic assembles all of those published or broadcast on radio or television. Also included among the interviews are a number of conversations not generally known, many of them transcribed from tapes gathered from personal collections. Interviews with Northrop Frye aims to provide another view of the famous literary critic, one that supplements that which is often obtained from reading his printed works. Ranging from the earliest interviews in 1948 to discussions that took place mere months before his death in 1991, this volume is a complete portrait of Frye the conversationalist, demonstrating that he was capable of expressing his thought just as lucidly in person as he could on paper. Among the topics included are Frye’s views on teaching, writing, and Canadian literature, his opinions on the state of criticism, and a fascinating exchange concerning contemporary religion. For anyone interested in the life and career of Northrop Frye, these interviews are an ideal way to gain greater insight into the man and his work.