Northrop Frye Quotes

Quotes about:

• Literature speaks the language of the imagination, and the study of literature is supposed to train and improve the imagination.

  Northrop Frye

  Imagination, Literature, Study

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.484, University of Toronto Press

  14 Copy quote

• This story of loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.

  Northrop Frye

  Loss, Thinking, Identity

  Northrop Frye (1964). “The Educated Imagination”, p.55, Indiana University Press

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• Literature as a whole is not an aggregate of exhibits with red and blue ribbons attached to them, like a cat-show, but the range of articulate human imagination as it extends from the height of imaginative heaven to the depth of imaginative hell.

  Northrop Frye

  Cat, Blue, Imagination

  Northrop Frye (1964). “The Educated Imagination”, p.105, Indiana University Press

  55 Copy quote

• The most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.

  Northrop Frye

  Book, Technology, Men

  45 Copy quote

• There is only one way to degrade mankind permanently and that is to destroy language.

  Northrop Frye

  Way, Language, Mankind

  Northrop Frye (2014). “The Northrop Frye Quote Book”, p.195, Dundurn

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• The fact that creative powers come from an area of the mind that seems to be independent of the conscious will, and often emerge with a good deal of emotional disturbance in their wake, provides the chief analogy between prophecy and the arts... Some people pursue wholeness and integration, others get smashed up, and fragments are rescued from the smash of an intensity that the wholeness and integration people do not reach.

  Northrop Frye

  Art, Independent, Emotional

  "The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Volume 19: 'The Secular Scripture' and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976-1991". Book by Northrop Frye, November 1, 2005.

  47 Copy quote

• The world of literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination.

  Northrop Frye

  Reality, Imagination, Literature

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.470, University of Toronto Press

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• Real unity tolerates dissent and rejoices in variety of outlook and tradition, recognizes that it is man's destiny to unite and not divide, and understands that creating proletariats and scapegoats and second-class citizens is a mean and contemptible activity.

  Northrop Frye

  Real, Mean, Destiny

  Northrop Frye, Robert D. Denham, Jean O'Grady, David Staines (2003). “Northrop Frye on Canada”, p.416, University of Toronto Press

  28 Copy quote

• Even the human heart is slightly left of centre.

  Northrop Frye

  Heart, Centre, Humans

  Quoted by Paul Wilson in'Growing Up with Orwell', in The Idler, Jul - Aug 1989.

  20 Copy quote

• The simplest questions are the hardest to answer.

  Northrop Frye

  Knowledge, Answers, Hardest

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• We are always in the place of beginning; there is no advance in infinity.

  Northrop Frye

  Infinity

  Northrop Frye, Robert D. Denham (2000). “Northrop Frye's Late Notebooks, 1982-1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World”, p.281, University of Toronto Press

  20 Copy quote

• A writers desire to write can only have come from previous experience of literature, and he'll start by imitating whatever he's read, which usually means what the people around him are writing.

  Northrop Frye

  Writing, Mean, People

  Northrop Frye (2014). “The Northrop Frye Quote Book”, p.89, Dundurn

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• I soon realized that a student of English literature who does not know the Bible does not understand a good deal of what is going on in what he reads: The most conscientous student will be continually misconstruing the implications, even the meaning.

  Northrop Frye

  Doe, Literature, Students

  Northrop Frye, Alvin A. Lee (2006). “The Great Code: The Bible and Literature”, p.5, University of Toronto Press

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• Man lives, not directly or nakedly in nature like the animals, but within a mythological universe, a body of assumptions and beliefs developed from his existential concerns.

  Northrop Frye

  Animal, Men, Body

  Northrop Frye (2014). “The Northrop Frye Quote Book”, p.329, Dundurn

  18 Copy quote

• Literally, the Bible is a gigantic myth, a narrative extending over the whole of time from creation to apocalypse, unified by a body of recurring imagery that "freezes" into a single metaphor cluster, the metaphors all being identified with the body of the Messiah, the man who is all men, the totality logoi who is one Logos, the grain of sand that is the world.

  Northrop Frye

  Men, World, Body

  "The Great Code: The Bible and Literature". Book by Northrop Frye, 1981.

  21 Copy quote

• Nobody is capable of of free speech unless he knows how to use language, and such knowledge is not a gift: it has to learned and worked at.

  Northrop Frye

  Use, Speech, Language

  "The Educated Imagination (Talk 6: The Vocation of Eloquence)". Book by Northrop Frye, 1963.

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• Advertising - a judicious mixture of flattery and threats.

  Northrop Frye

  Business, Mixtures, Advertising

  Northrop Frye (1976). “The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance”, p.167, Harvard University Press

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• A person who knows nothing about literature may be an ignoramus, but many people don't mind being that.

  Northrop Frye

  People, Mind, Literature

  Northrop Frye (1964). “The Educated Imagination”, p.15, Indiana University Press

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• We must reject that most dismal and fatuous notion that education is a preparation for life.

  Northrop Frye

  Educational, Preparation, Notion

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• Read Blake or go to hell, that's my message to the modern world.

  Northrop Frye

  World, Messages, Hell

  Northrop Frye, Nicholas Halmi (2004). “Northrop Frye's Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake”, p.45, University of Toronto Press

  10 Copy quote

• One doesn't bother to believe the credible: the credible is believed already, by definition. There's no adventure of the mind.

  Northrop Frye

  Believe, Adventure, Mind

  Northrop Frye, Robert D. Denham (2000). “Northrop Frye's Late Notebooks, 1982-1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World”, p.313, University of Toronto Press

  4 Copy quote

• Man is constantly building anxiety-structures, like geodesic domes, around his social and religious institutions.

  Northrop Frye

  Religious, Men, Anxiety

  Northrop Frye, Alvin A. Lee (2006). “The Great Code: The Bible and Literature”, p.253, University of Toronto Press

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• The Bible should be taught so early and so thoroughly that it sinks straight to the bottom of the mind where everything that comes along can settle on it.

  Northrop Frye

  Mind, Atheism, Taught

  Northrop Frye, Germaine Warkentin (2006). “Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962”, p.475, University of Toronto Press

  17 Copy quote

• Every human society possesses a mythology which is inherited, transmitted and diversified by literature.

  Northrop Frye

  Literature, Mythology, Humans

  Northrop Frye (2014). “The Northrop Frye Quote Book”, p.229, Dundurn

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• We are being swallowed up by the popular culture of the United States, but then the Americans are being swallowed up by it too. It's just as much a threat to American culture as it is to ours.

  Northrop Frye

  United States, Culture, Threat

  16 Copy quote

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