38 Facts About Northrop Frye

Herman Northrop Frye was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.

Northrop Frye's 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.

Northrop Frye went to Toronto to compete in a national typing contest in 1929.

Northrop Frye studied for his undergraduate degree in philosophy at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where he edited the college literary journal, Acta Victoriana.

Northrop Frye then studied theology at Emmanuel College.

Northrop Frye then studied at Merton College, Oxford, where he was a member and Secretary of the Bodley Club before returning to Victoria College, where he spent the remainder of his professional career.

Northrop Frye rose to international prominence as a result of his first book, Fearful Symmetry, published in 1947.

Northrop Frye found in it a system of metaphor derived from Paradise Lost and the Bible.

Northrop Frye's study of Blake's poetry was a major contribution to the subject.

Northrop Frye was a major influence on Harold Bloom, Margaret Atwood, and others.

Northrop Frye married Helen Kemp, an educator, editor and artist, in 1937.

Northrop Frye died in Australia while accompanying Frye on a lecture tour.

Northrop Frye died in 1991 and was interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, Ontario.

Northrop Frye was the first critic to postulate a systematic theory of criticism, "to work out," in his own words, "a unified commentary on the theory of literary criticism".

Northrop Frye described this as an attempt at a "synoptic view of the scope, theory, principles, and techniques of literary criticism".

In seeking integrity for criticism, Northrop Frye rejects what he termed the deterministic fallacy.

Northrop Frye identifies these formulas as the "conventional myths and metaphors" which he calls "archetypes".

The archetypes of literature exist, Northrop Frye argues, as an order of words, providing criticism with a conceptual framework and a body of knowledge derived not from an ideological system but rooted in the imagination itself.

Once asked whether his critical theory was Romantic, Northrop Frye responded, "Oh, it's entirely Romantic, yes".

Northrop Frye uses the terms 'centripetal' and 'centrifugal' to describe his critical method.

Criticism, Northrop Frye explains, is essentially centripetal when it moves inwardly, towards the structure of a text; it is centrifugal when it moves outwardly, away from the text and towards society and the outer world.

Essentially, "what criticism can do," according to Northrop Frye, "is awaken students to successive levels of awareness of the mythology that lies behind the ideology in which their society indoctrinates them".

Northrop Frye readily acknowledged the debt he owed to Vico in developing his literary theory, describing him as "the first modern thinker to understand that all major verbal structures have descended historically from poetic and mythological ones".

For it was in reflecting on the similarity between Blake and Milton that Northrop Frye first stumbled upon the "principle of the mythological framework," the recognition that "the Bible was a mythological framework, cosmos or body of stories, and that societies live within a mythology".

Subsequently, Frye elaborated on these observations, especially in his conclusion to Carl F Klinck's Literary History of Canada.

Northrop Frye maintained that such communities were peculiarly Canadian, and fostered a literature that was formally immature, that displayed deep moral discomfort with "uncivilized" nature, and whose narratives reinforced social norms and values.

Northrop Frye aided James Polk in compiling Divisions on a Ground: Essays on Canadian Culture.

Northrop Frye collected his disparate writings on Canadian writing and painting in The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination.

Northrop Frye coined phrases like the Garrison Mentality, a theme that summarizes Canadian literature.

However, Northrop Frye perceived the ability and advisability of Canadian identity to move beyond these characteristics.

Northrop Frye proposed the possibility of movement beyond the literary constraints of the garrison mentality: growing urbanization, interpreted as greater control over the environment, would produce a society with sufficient confidence for its writers to compose more formally advanced detached literature.

Northrop Frye argued that regardless of the formal quality of the writing, it was imperative to study Canadian literary productions in order to understand the Canadian imagination and its reaction to the Canadian environment.

Northrop Frye was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1951 and awarded the Royal Society's Lorne Pierce Medal and its Pierre Chauveau Medal.

Northrop Frye was named University Professor by the University of Toronto in 1967.

Northrop Frye won the Canada Council Molson Prize in 1971, and the Royal Bank Award in 1978.

Northrop Frye was an Honorary Fellow or Member of the following:.

Northrop Frye was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1972.

Beyond these publications, Northrop Frye edited fifteen books, composed essays and chapters that appear in over sixty books, and wrote over one hundred articles and reviews in academic journals.