Collected Works of Northrop Frye
17 primary works • 18 total works
Book 1
The Correspondence of Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932-1939
by Northrop Frye
Published 1 January 1996
Robert D. Denham has collected in these volumes the 266 letters, cards, and telegrams that Helen Kemp and Northrop Frye wrote to each other during the six periods when they were apart, from the winter of 1931-32 until the summer of 1939. The letters form a compelling narrative of their early relationship. They tell of a romance in which two people fall in love, want to get married, and are confronted with obstacles blocking their path, including lack of money and the education they both need to advance their careers. But the story is much more than a romance. The letters reveal Frye's early talent as a writer, illustrating that both the matter and the manner of his criticism had begun to take shape when he was only nineteen. Helen Kemp's expressiveness and intelligence come through clearly in her letters, which were only discovered in 1992. Kemp and Frye share their thoughts on literature, music, religion, politics, education, and a host of other topics.
They discuss their alma mater, Victoria College; artists and musicians of Toronto; southwestern Saskatchewan, where Frye spent a summer as a pastor on a United Church circuit; Frye's hometown, Moncton, New Brunswick; and Kemp's neighbourhood on Fulton Avenue in Toronto. We travel with them around the world, from Ottawa to Rome. We see through their eyes the early years of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the struggles of the United Church of Canada, the activities of the Student Christian Movement, the appeal of Communism, the rise of fascism, and the beginnings of art education in the galleries of Canada.
They discuss their alma mater, Victoria College; artists and musicians of Toronto; southwestern Saskatchewan, where Frye spent a summer as a pastor on a United Church circuit; Frye's hometown, Moncton, New Brunswick; and Kemp's neighbourhood on Fulton Avenue in Toronto. We travel with them around the world, from Ottawa to Rome. We see through their eyes the early years of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the struggles of the United Church of Canada, the activities of the Student Christian Movement, the appeal of Communism, the rise of fascism, and the beginnings of art education in the galleries of Canada.
Book 3
'Frye was a person of uncommon gifts, and very little that came from his pen is without interest.' So writes Robert Denham in his introduction to this unique collection of twenty-two papers written by Northrop Frye during his student years. Made public only after Frye's death in 1991, all but one of the essays are published here for the first time. The majority of these papers were written for courses at Emmanuel College, the theology school of Victoria College at the University of Toronto. Essays such as 'The Concept of Sacrifice,' 'The Fertility Cults,' and 'The Jewish Background of the New Testament' reveal the links between Frye's early research in theology and the form and content of his later criticism. It is clear that even as a theology student Frye's first impulse was always that of the cultural critic. The papers on Calvin, Eliot, Chaucer, Wyndham Lewis, and on the forms of prose fiction show Frye as precociously witty, rigorous, and incisive - a gifted writer who clearly found his voice before his last undergraduate year.
David Lodge wrote in the New Statesman: 'There are not many critics whose twenty-year-old book reviews one can read with pleasure and instruction, but Frye is an exception to most rules.' Northrop Frye's student essays provide pleasure and instruction through their comments on the Augustinian view of history, on beauty, truth, and goodness, on literary symbolism and tradition.
David Lodge wrote in the New Statesman: 'There are not many critics whose twenty-year-old book reviews one can read with pleasure and instruction, but Frye is an exception to most rules.' Northrop Frye's student essays provide pleasure and instruction through their comments on the Augustinian view of history, on beauty, truth, and goodness, on literary symbolism and tradition.
Book 4
The late Northrop Frye is Canada's best-known literary and cultural critic, and one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century. During his lifetime, Frye developed a profoundly religious epistemology that informed and infused much of what he wrote. In bringing together his writings on the Bible and religion, this volume offers many keys to the dynamic essence of Frye's thought. Well-organized, insightfully introduced, and carefully edited, this scholarly, annotated edition covers nearly the full range of Frye's intensive intellectual work on religion. (The Great Code and Words with Power will be published in separate volumes of the collected edition.) The writings presented here span a period of fifty-seven years and range from prayers to convocation addresses. Although remarkably diverse in form and content, they reveal the splendid coherence of Frye's vision. This is a quintessential volume in the Collected Works, indispensable to all who have been inspired by Frye's work.
In it we find the brilliant and often unorthodox record of a great mind imaginatively open to the transforming power of the Bible, and open also to what William Blake called "the human form divine."
In it we find the brilliant and often unorthodox record of a great mind imaginatively open to the transforming power of the Bible, and open also to what William Blake called "the human form divine."
Book 6
An inveterate notebook keeper, Northrop Frye continually jotted down his ideas and thoughts as he worked through the complex schemes of his criticism. Volumes 5 and 6 of the Collected Works are the notebooks that he kept while writing his two final books, "Words with Power" and "The Double Vision". They provide a record of what he was reading and thinking as he struggled with the implications of those projects. In a sense they are the workshops out of which the books were constructed. While focusing on the works-in-progress, the 3684 entries presented here range over diverse territory, never failing to surprise, delight, and provoke. In these notebooks, for instance, we find comments triggered by a detective story Frye is reading, a lecture he has to prepare, a glance at the books on his shelves, a quotation he remembers, a letter received, or the memory of a trip. In many respects, the notebooks reveal a Frye who is quite different from the critic who made his reputation with "Fearful Symmetry" and "Anatomy of Criticism", displaying aspects of his personality and thought that are not apparent in his books and essays.
The notebooks show us the unbuttoned Frye, a complex man capable of both spiritual transcendence and hard-headed pragmatism. Here, for instance, his criticism of Catholicism is far more acerbic than in anything he published. Likewise, his rejection of both Marxist and feminist ideology is far more pointed than elsewhere. These two volumes include seven of Frye's handwritten notebooks and five collections of his typed notebooks - all previously unpublished. The material is the record of an extraordinary intellectual odyssey, an odyssey that is, at its base, deeply spiritual.
The notebooks show us the unbuttoned Frye, a complex man capable of both spiritual transcendence and hard-headed pragmatism. Here, for instance, his criticism of Catholicism is far more acerbic than in anything he published. Likewise, his rejection of both Marxist and feminist ideology is far more pointed than elsewhere. These two volumes include seven of Frye's handwritten notebooks and five collections of his typed notebooks - all previously unpublished. The material is the record of an extraordinary intellectual odyssey, an odyssey that is, at its base, deeply spiritual.
Book 8
With the publication of Fearful Symmetry in 1947, Northrop Frye gained wide renown as a literary theorist, a reputation that continued to build throughout his lifetime. This volume in the Collected Works provides a transcription of the seven books of diaries that Frye kept intermittently from 1942 until 1955. During the period of the final six diaries, 1949 - 1955, Frye was at work on Anatomy of Criticism, and he refers frequently to many of the essays written during this period that became a part of the book that brought him international acclaim. For Frye, diary-writing was a tool for recording "everything of importance" and this ruled out very little. His entries contain a large measure of self-analysis and self-revelation, and in this respect are confessional -- we see his sanguine humour, dark moods and claustrophobia, along with the more self-congratulatory aspects of his character. But the volume also serves as a chronicle.
Peering over Frye's shoulder, we watch him teach his classes, plan his career, record his dreams, register his frank reactions to the hundreds of people who cross his path, eye attractive women, reflect on books, music and movies, ponder religious and political issues, consider his various physical and psychological ailments, practise the piano, visit bookstores, frequent Toronto restaurants, and record scores of additional activities, mundane and otherwise. The volume is fully annotated and contains a directory that identifies the more than 1200 people who make an appearance. Published here for the first time, these chronicles provide an unprecedented view of the life and times of this now-legendary scholar.
Peering over Frye's shoulder, we watch him teach his classes, plan his career, record his dreams, register his frank reactions to the hundreds of people who cross his path, eye attractive women, reflect on books, music and movies, ponder religious and political issues, consider his various physical and psychological ailments, practise the piano, visit bookstores, frequent Toronto restaurants, and record scores of additional activities, mundane and otherwise. The volume is fully annotated and contains a directory that identifies the more than 1200 people who make an appearance. Published here for the first time, these chronicles provide an unprecedented view of the life and times of this now-legendary scholar.
Book 9
The 'Third Book' Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964-1972: The Critical Comedy
by Northrop Frye
Published 1 January 2002
In the early 1960s, Northrop Frye began keeping notebooks with the aim of creating a critical epic that he referred to as the 'Third Book', a project intended as his third major work following Fearful Symmetry and Anatomy of Criticism. As described by Michael Dolzani, Frye's ambition for the 'Third Book' was for it to become no less than a "symbolic guide to the entire universe". The work he envisioned contemplated the ways in which myth and metaphor are the keys to all verbal structures: how they reach beyond the hypothetical realm of literature to inform, organize, and control historical, conceptual, political, and perhaps scientific thought. Although ultimately abandoned, the 'Third Book' remains both an essential component of the larger Collected Works of Northrop Frye and an intriguing text in its own right. Michael Dolzani provides an eloquent introduction that adds an essential unifying frame to the fragmented and complex critical musings which comprise this enormous volume of work. Further, he has incorporated much useful background material and cross-referencing, enhancing the value of this volume as an indispensable research tool.
Book 10
Drawn from previously unpublished essays, talks, reviews and papers, this volume of Northrop Frye's collected works spans some fifty years of his long writing career. The earliest item is a paper on The Canterbury Tales dating from Frye's student days at Oxford. The latest was written in 1989, on the occasion of his receiving his thirty-sixth honorary degree from the University of Bologna. The center-piece of the collection is Frye's lengthy and ambitious essay, "Rencontre." Intended as an introduction to a never-published anthology of English literature, it is unique in Frye's oeuvre, being the only example of a sustained, continuous encounter with an entire literary tradition. "Rencontre" is a masterwork in its own right. Other important essays include: "Shakespeare and the Comedy of Humours," "The Literary Meaning of 'Archetype,'" and "Blake's Jerusalem." Frye was a profound and original thinker whose stature has not yet been fully realized. The writings collected here not only exemplify his extraordinary mind and elegant prose style - they show a far-sightedness and range that has not been seen before.
Book 12
Northrop Frye is conceivably Canada's most celebrated literary theorist, but his role in the country's cultural evolution has perhaps been overlooked by later Canadian scholars in favour of his better-known literary criticism. This collection brings together all of the writings of Northrop Frye, both published and heretofore unpublished, on the subject of Canadian literature and culture. From his early book reviews of the 1930s and 1940s through his explorations of the patterns of Canadian literature in the fifties, to his cultural commentaries of the sixties, seventies, and eighties (including all his essays from The Bush Garden and Divisions on a Ground), Northrop Frye on Canada is vivid testimony to his position as an astute critic of his country's literature and a vital participant in its cultural evolution. All of Frye's writings on Canadian literature and culture - essays, articles, reviews, and speeches - are published in their entirety and are accompanied by a detailed introduction and contextual headnotes to each piece.
Gathered from more than fifty years of Frye's career, the collection shows Frye as a careful and caring critic of Canada, and is demonstrative of his importance as the cultural commentator on Canada.
Gathered from more than fifty years of Frye's career, the collection shows Frye as a careful and caring critic of Canada, and is demonstrative of his importance as the cultural commentator on Canada.
Book 14
Published in 1947, Fearful Symmetry was Northrop Frye's first book and the product of over a decade of intense labour. Drawing readers into the imaginative world of William Blake, Frye succeeded in making Blake's voice and vision intelligible to the wider public. Distinguished by its range of reference, elegance of expression, comprehensiveness of coverage, coherence of argument, and sympathy to its subject, Fearful Symmetry was immediately recognized as a landmark of Blake criticism. Fifty years later, it is still recognized as having ensured the acceptance of Blake as a canonical poet by permanently dispelling the widespread notion that he was the mad creator of an incomprehensible private symbolism. For this new edition, the text has been revised and corrected in accordance with the principles of the Collected Works of Northrop Frye series. Frye's original annotation has been supplemented with references to currently standard editions of Blake and others, and many new notes have been provided, identifying quotations, allusions, and cultural references.
An introduction by Ian Singer provides biographical and critical context for the book, an overview of its contents, and an account of its reception.
An introduction by Ian Singer provides biographical and critical context for the book, an overview of its contents, and an account of its reception.
Book 15
Romance was a theme that ran through much of Northrop Frye's corpus, and his notebooks and typed notes on the subject are plentiful. This unpublished material, written between 1944 and 1989, traces a remarkable re-evaluation in his thinking over the course of time. As a young scholar, Frye insisted that romance was an expression of cultural decadence; however, in his later years, he thought of it as "the structural core of all fiction." The unpublished material Michael Dolzani has gathered for Northrop Frye's Notebooks on Romance shows how the pattern and conventions of romance inform the writing of history, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and theology. While Frye is best known for his writing on myth and biblical scholarship, he himself eventually conceived of romance as the true and equal contrary to myth and scripture, a "secular scripture" whose message is de te fabula, "this story is about you." Given the current popular revival of romance in fiction and film, the appearance of Frye's unpublished work on romance is of profound importance.
Book 19
The Secular Scripture and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976?1991
by Northrop Frye
Published 1 July 2006
Northrop Frye's The Secular Scripture was first published in 1976 and was soon recognized as one of his most influential works, reflecting an extensive development of Frye's thoughts about romance as a literary form. This new edition in the Collected Works of Northrop Frye series brings The Secular Scripture together with thirty shorter pieces pertaining to literary theory and criticism from the last fifteen years of Frye's life. Frye's study illuminates the enduring attraction and deep human significance of the romance genre in all its forms. He provides a unique perspective on popular fiction and culture and shows how romance forms have, by their very structural and conventional features, an ability to address both specific social concerns and deep and fundamental human concerns that span time and place. In distinguishing popular from elite culture, Frye insists that they are both ultimately two aspects of the same "human compulsion to create in the face of chaos." The additional late writings reflect Frye's sense at the time that he was working "toward some kind of final statement," which eventually saw the light of day, only months before his death, as Words with Power (1990).
Book 19
Considered by many to be Northrop Frye's magnum opus, The Great Code (1982) reflects a lifetime of thinking about the patterns and meanings of the Bible. In this new edition of The Great Code, Alvin A. Lee presents a corrected and fully annotated version of Frye's text, as well as a comprehensive introduction to help contextualize this important work and guide readers through its allusive passages. Lee's introduction provides a synoptic account of the role of the Bible in Frye's intellectual and spiritual odyssey, as well as a description of how The Great Code as a book came into existence, and an introductory critique of the shape and meaning of the book's argument. The Great Code is culturally allusive to a high degree. It takes much of its inspiration from the Bible itself, including a profusion of biblical passages, but also from the author's extensive reading of a host of other texts from ancient times until the late twentieth century. Lee's extensive annotation illustrates, beyond question, that Frye's knowledge of the Bible and how it has worked in Western culture was at once profound and visionary.
This new edition not only re-presents Frye's text in a clear, correct, and fully annotated form, it goes a long way in helping us understand the widespread scholarly and popular reception that met this extraordinary and in some ways revolutionary book and how it can still be richly rewarding for readers.
This new edition not only re-presents Frye's text in a clear, correct, and fully annotated form, it goes a long way in helping us understand the widespread scholarly and popular reception that met this extraordinary and in some ways revolutionary book and how it can still be richly rewarding for readers.
Book 21
The Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory 1933-1963
by Northrop Frye
Published 9 December 2006
In 1933, Northrop Frye was a recent university graduate, beginning to learn his craft as a literary essayist. By 1963, with the publication of The Educated Imagination, he had become an international academic celebrity. In the intervening three decades, Frye wrote widely and prodigiously, but it is in the papers and lectures collected in this installment of the Collected Works of Northrop Frye, that the genesis of a distinguished literary critic can be seen. Here is Frye tracing the first outlines of a literary cosmology that would culminate in The Anatomy of Criticism (1958) and shapeThe Great Code (1982) and Words with Power (1990). At the same time that Frye garnered such international acclaim, he was also a working university teacher, lecturing in the University of Toronto's English Language and Literature program. In her lively introduction, Germaine Warkentin links Frye's evolution as a critic with his love of music, his passionate concern for his students, and his growing professional ambition. The writings included in this volume show how Frye integrated ideas into the work that would consolidate the fame that Fearful Symmetry (1947) had first established.
Book 22
The description for this book, Anatomy of Criticism, will be forthcoming.
Book 23
Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism (1957) is widely regarded as a masterpiece of literary theory. The product of years of reading and reflection, the book's value extends far beyond its impact on criticism as a whole; ultimately, it must be viewed as a synoptic defense of liberal learning by one of the twentieth century's most distinguished critics. In this, the twenty-third volume of the Collected Works, editor Robert D. Denham presents the notebooks to the Anatomy, blue-prints, as it were, for Frye's comprehensive account of literary conventions. Composed from the late 1940s to 1956, the notebooks document the struggle Frye underwent to provide a structure for his work. This involved incorporating previously published essays and developing new material that would maintain the continuity of his argument. This fully annotated volume contains seventeen holograph notebooks, each illuminating some aspect of the grand structure that eventually emerged. Altogether, the notebooks offer an intimate picture of Frye's working process and a renewed appreciation for his magisterial accomplishment.
Book 26
Words with Power is the crowning achievement of the latter half of Northrop Frye's career. Portions of the work can be found in Frye's notebooks as far back as the mid-1960s when he had just finished Anatomy of Criticism, and he completed the book shortly before his death in 1991. Beyond summing up his ideas about the relation of the Bible to Western culture, Words with Power boldly confronts a host of questions ranging from the relationship between literature and ideology to the real meaning of words like 'spirit' and 'faith.' The first half of the 'double mirror' structure looks at the language in which the Bible is written, arguing that it is identical to that of myth and metaphor. Frye suggests, therefore, that given this characteristic, the Bible should be read imaginatively rather than historically or doctrinally. However, he is also careful to point out the ways in which the Bible is more than a conventional work of fiction. The second half is an astonishing tour de force in which Frye demonstrates how both the Bible and literature revolve around four primary concerns of human life.
This edition goes beyond the original in its documentation of Frye's dazzlingly encyclopedic range of reference. Profound and searching, Words with Power is perhaps the most daring book of Frye's career and one of the most exciting.
This edition goes beyond the original in its documentation of Frye's dazzlingly encyclopedic range of reference. Profound and searching, Words with Power is perhaps the most daring book of Frye's career and one of the most exciting.
Book 28
Northrop Frye's Writings on Shakespeare and the Renaissance
by Northrop Frye
Published 11 December 2010
This collection of Northrop Frye's writings on Shakespeare and the Renaissance spans forty years of his career as a university teacher, public critic, and major theorist of literature and its cultural functions. Extensive annotations and an in-depth critical introduction demonstrate Frye's wide-ranging knowledge of Renaissance culture, the pivotal place of the Renaissance in his oeuvre, his impact on Renaissance criticism and on the Stratford Festival, and his continuing importance as a literary theorist.
This volume brings together Frye's extensive writings on Shakespeare and other Renaissance writers (excluding Milton, who is featured in other volumes), and includes major articles, introductions, public lectures, and four previously published books on Shakespeare. Frye's insightful analyses offer not just a formidable knowledge of Renaissance culture but also a transformative experience, moving the reader imaginatively towards an experience of created reality.
This volume brings together Frye's extensive writings on Shakespeare and other Renaissance writers (excluding Milton, who is featured in other volumes), and includes major articles, introductions, public lectures, and four previously published books on Shakespeare. Frye's insightful analyses offer not just a formidable knowledge of Renaissance culture but also a transformative experience, moving the reader imaginatively towards an experience of created reality.
Northrop Frye on Modern Culture. Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Volume 11.
by Northrop Frye
Published 1 January 2003