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Throughout the 1990s, I regularly taught an intermediate course in the Theory of Criticism.\u00a0 At various intervals in the course, I would give students a brief essay providing an overview of the unit we were studying.\u00a0 I used the Hazard Adams anthology Critical Theory Since Plato<\/em>, and always assigned the selection from Frye (the second essay from the Anatomy<\/em>).\u00a0 What follows is the last version of my notes on Northrop Frye, from the fall of 2000.\u00a0 After that semester, I stopped teaching the theory course in order to make room in my schedule for a new course I had developed on the Bible and Literature.<\/p>\n My notes may be of some slight historical interest to readers of this blog; if I were teaching the course again, I would change a few emphases, but I was struck on rereading the essay by how little I would change of the substance.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure to what extent the prophecy of my last sentence has been fulfilled; Frye does not seem to me especially influential on the liberal studies and great books programmes that claim to be in the humanist tradition, though I may be generalizing here from inadequate knowledge.\u00a0 Furthermore, reflecting on these comments at the beginning of 2010, my impression is that there has been something of an accommodation between literary and cultural studies in recent years.\u00a0 (Joe and Michael may well disagree with this as an overly sanguine opinion.)\u00a0 I expected to see an increasing polarization between the two approaches, but that does not seem to me to have happened.\u00a0 I think that PMLA<\/em> is a more genuinely diverse publication than it seemed in the 1990s, and the graduate students I meet are often eclectic and flexible in their thinking, even if they are also realistic about what they have to do to get an academic job.\u00a0 Frye\u2019s place in the contemporary scene is something that I am sure we will continue to discuss and argue about.<\/p>\n In one section of the theory class, during the mid-90s, I had an excellent student \u2013 let\u2019s call her Antonia \u2013 who was the only person ever to choose R. P. Blackmur as an essay subject in all the times that I taught the course.\u00a0 A colleague told me that she had mentioned Frye in her Canadian literature class, to which Antonia responded, \u201cI love Northrop Frye!\u201d<\/p>\n Here are the notes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EGL 324.1\u00a0 Northrop Frye: An Introduction\u00a0 [5 October 2000]<\/strong><\/p>\n Northrop Frye (1912-91), though one of the most frequently cited of literary theorists in the middle part of the twentieth century, tends to be somewhat neglected at the moment in discussions of literary theory, partly because he pursued his own highly individual critical path, so that he cannot easily be accommodated to any other school of modern criticism; partly because he insisted that literature was an autonomous realm, separate from that of ideology, a view which does not sit well with the prevailing critical orthodoxy.\u00a0 Literary study has, for the last fifteen years or so, been dominated by political and ideological criticism, criticism that seeks to explicate the literary work in terms of its cultural and social context.\u00a0 Often, especially as the discipline crosses over into \u201ccultural studies\u201d (see Brantlinger), the distinction between literature and other forms of discourse, always a problem for literary theory, is either abolished altogether, or regarded as the arbitrary privileging of certain texts that preserve particular social relations and values.\u00a0 Frye rarely engaged with other contemporary critics directly, but he implicitly challenged this turn to social criticism in a number of places towards the end of his life, notably in his books Myth and Metaphor<\/em> and Words with Power<\/em>.\u00a0 As his unpublished notebooks appear in the University of Toronto Press edition of Frye\u2019s collected works, they will shed additional light on his view of recent literary theory.<\/p>\n Another reason for the neglect may be simply that Frye was so influential through the middle part of this century that critics have wanted to define new problems and new ways of reading by diverging from that influence.<\/p>\n Frye spent his teaching career at the University of Toronto, and he achieved an intellectual and social influence that went well beyond the discipline of literary criticism.\u00a0 He was a dedicated teacher who was much loved by generations of students.\u00a0 A convenient summary of and introduction to the main themes of Frye\u2019s work is the series of interviews with David Cayley that were recorded for the CBC late in his life and published as Northrop Frye in Conversation<\/em>.\u00a0 I have relied heavily on these interviews to produce this introductory note on Frye.\u00a0 Those who want to explore his thought in more depth could also look at the lectures collected in another late work, The Double Vision<\/em> (1991).<\/p>\n Frye\u2019s first major work was his study of Blake, Fearful Symmetry<\/em> (1947), while his most important work is undoubtedly Anatomy of Criticism<\/em> (1957), in which he sought to establish the basis for an autonomous discipline of criticism, that is, to describe a method of studying literature on its own terms, rather than in the terms of other disciplines or systems of thought.\u00a0 In this respect, Frye has affinities with the New Critics.\u00a0 Decades after the book appeared, he commented that Freudian and Marxist criticism were two of the deterministic varieties of criticism against which he reacts in the Anatomy<\/em> (Cayley 72).\u00a0 The chief products of the latter part of his life are his two volumes on the Bible and literature, The Great Code<\/em> (1981) and Words with Power<\/em> (1990).<\/p>\n In common with the structuralist critics, and in opposition to New Criticism, Frye is more concerned with literature as a system than with the individual work, and his books thus are not so much models of how to read particular texts as studies of the nature of this system.\u00a0 Frye regarded literature as composed of what he called \u201carchetypes\u201d\u2014in other words \u201cmyths and units within myths\u201d (Cayley 76).\u00a0 All literature is thus displaced myth,*<\/strong> endlessly recycled versions of basic stories which take the various forms that are analyzed in the Anatomy of Criticism<\/em>.<\/p>\n More and more in the latter part of his career Frye talked about myths of primary and secondary concern.\u00a0 Mythology grows out of concern.\u00a0 Primary concern is based on the most basic human needs: the desire to survive, the sexual instinct, the desire for freedom.\u00a0 Secondary concerns are things like loyalty to one\u2019s nation or religious beliefs, to one\u2019s social position, \u201cand in short to everything that comes under the general heading of ideology\u201d (Frye, Myth<\/em> 21).\u00a0 To Frye, most of human history is the story of the way that primary concerns are subjugated to secondary concerns.\u00a0 Any human conflict\u2014for instance, the civil war in the former Yugoslavia\u2014will provide many sad examples.\u00a0 No work of literature, or \u201cimagination\u201d as Frye puts it, is purely primary or secondary, because mythology is about primary concern, but it has to find its concrete form in a social structure, in a particular group or class, \u201cYet the two aspects are still two: primary mythology is anthropocentric; secondary mythology is ethnocentric.\u00a0 Much of the critical process revolves around the effort of distinguishing them\u201d (Myth<\/em> 23).\u00a0 Frye uses the example of Henry V<\/em> to illustrate this distinction.\u00a0 The play appeals to the patriotic prejudices of the English and their dislike of the French.\u00a0 However, it also illustrates the brutality and futility of war:<\/p>\n This does not mean that the play is a palimpsest with a perfunctory patriotic message on top and an ironic one underneath to be discovered by cleverer students.\u00a0 It means that as we progress in understanding, the play\u2019s expression of primary concern, as a metaphorical vision of life, begins to become distinguishable from an ideology of patriotism which is also there.\u00a0 (Myth<\/em> 23)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Defending his work against attacks from the left, Frye makes a distinction between literature and ideology.\u00a0 Some myths are ideologically instituted, like those of official religions.\u00a0 The following explanation is worth quoting at length, and worth considering in relation to the more skeptical view of the majority of more recent criticism:<\/p>\n most of my critics do not know that there is such a thing as a poetic language, which not only is different from ideological language but puts up a constant fight against it to liberalize and individualize it.\u00a0 There is no such thing as a pure myth. . . .\u00a0 Myth exists only in incarnations.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the ones that are incarnated in works of literature that I\u2019m primarily interested in, and what they create is a cultural counter-environment to the ones that are\u2014I won\u2019t say perverted\u2014but at any rate twisted or skewed into ideological patterns of authority.\u00a0 (Cayley 90)<\/p>\n Because of his view that literature does not argue, Frye sees the task of the critic as being aware of language, \u201cparticularly of literary language and what it\u2019s trying to do\u201d (Cayley 94).\u00a0 This is further explained in a later conversation, when he comments that \u201cI think I am a critic who thinks as poets think\u2014in terms of metaphors.\u00a0 If you like, that\u2019s what makes me distinctive as a critic\u201d (Cayley 145).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In an address to the Victoria University alumni he defined the purpose, as he saw it, of studying the humanities:<\/p>\n The basis of my own approach, as a teacher of the humanities, has always been that we participate in society by means of our imagination or the quality of our social vision, and that training the imagination and clarifying the social vision are the only ways of developing citizens capable of taking part in a society as complicated as ours.\u00a0 (Myth<\/em> 69)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Frye\u2019s defence of humanistic education is one that seems to me still worth making, and he is further worth our attention as one of the greatest intellectuals that this country has ever produced.\u00a0 This is not to say that his work should be read uncritically.\u00a0 For example, a careful reading of his writing shows a strong masculine bias, evident in the metaphors he uses and the way that he represents the creative process in gendered terms that make it a masculine act.\u00a0 A characteristic example occurs in Myth and Metaphor<\/em>, where he discusses the relationship between the poet and \u201chis\u201d muse: \u201cI would certainly not want to leave the impression that all Muses are soft cuddly nudes: some of them are ravening harpies who swoop and snatch and carry off, who destroy a poet\u2019s peace of mind, his position in society, even his sanity\u201d (83).\u00a0 Elsewhere Frye criticized attempts to make the English language more gender-inclusive as exemplifying a \u201cdistrust of metaphorical thinking\u201d (Double Vision<\/em> 87n.), but here he seems limited by the terms of his own metaphor of the Muses.\u00a0 Similarly, Frye\u2019s work on the Bible and literature assumes a highly personal reading of the Bible, and was carried on in isolation from the dominant schools of biblical interpretation this century.<\/p>\n I hope that this introduction to Frye\u2019s thought will encourage you to read further for yourself.\u00a0 No matter where one begins in his work, one is always led to explore its recurrent themes and concerns; he is a writer who works by developing simple aphoristic statements into larger and larger structures, and any essay provides a point of access to those structures.\u00a0 Frye is also a critic one can read for pleasure, simply as an outstanding stylist.\u00a0 The following list offers some suggestions for further reading.<\/p>\n In the years following his death, Frye\u2019s personal papers were catalogued and made available to scholars, and they have now begun to be used to interpret his work.\u00a0 It is possible that this will stimulate a renewed interest in his work, as the contributors to the collection Rereading Frye<\/em>, edited by Boyd and Salusinszky, argue that it should.\u00a0 There are certainly a number of scholars actively working on Frye, and it is possible that his work will provide an alternative approach for those who want to continue a humanist approach to literary studies.<\/p>\n *<\/strong> \u201cA myth is a story\u2014the Greek word mythos<\/em>.\u00a0 It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, whereas life doesn\u2019t\u201d (Cayley 76).<\/p>\n Works Cited and Further <\/strong>Reading<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n Adamson, Joseph.\u00a0 Northrop Frye: A Visionary Life<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: ECW, 1993.<\/p>\n Ayre, John.\u00a0 Northrop Frye: A Biography<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: Random, 1989.<\/p>\n Boyd, David and Imre Salusinszky, eds.\u00a0 Rereading Frye: The Published and Unpublished Works<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.<\/p>\n Brantlinger, Patrick.\u00a0 Crusoe\u2019s Footprints: Cultural Studies in Britain and America<\/em>.\u00a0 New York: Routledge, 1990.<\/p>\n Cayley, David. Northrop Frye in Conversation<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: Anansi, 1992.<\/p>\n Denham, Robert D.\u00a0 Northrop Frye: An Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1987.<\/p>\n Frye, Northrop.\u00a0 Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays<\/em>.\u00a0 Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.<\/p>\n \u2014.\u00a0 The Critical Path: An Essay on the Social Context of Literary Criticism<\/em>.\u00a0 Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1971.<\/p>\n \u2014.\u00a0 The Double Vision: Language and Meaning in Religion<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1991.<\/p>\n \u2014.\u00a0 Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake<\/em>.\u00a0 Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1947.<\/p>\n \u2014.\u00a0 The Great Code: The Bible and Literature<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: Academic P, c.1981.<\/p>\n \u2014.\u00a0 Myth and Metaphor: Selected Essays, 1974-1988<\/em>.\u00a0 Ed. Robert D. Denham.\u00a0 Charlottesville and London: UP of Virginia, 1990.<\/p>\n \u2014.\u00a0 The Well-Tempered Critic<\/em>.\u00a0 Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1963.<\/p>\n \u2014.\u00a0 Words with Power: Being a Second Study of \u201cThe Bible and Literature<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Toronto: Penguin, 1990.<\/p>\n Hamilton, A. C.\u00a0 Northrop Frye: Anatomy of His Criticism<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1990.<\/p>\n Lee, Alvin A. and Robert D. Denham, eds.\u00a0\u00a0 The Legacy of Northrop Frye<\/em>.\u00a0 Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1995.<\/p>\n A special issue of the journal English Studies in Canada<\/em>, 19.2 (June 1993), was devoted to Northrop Frye.\u00a0 His Collected Works are now being published by the University of Toronto Press.\u00a0 One volume contains his undergraduate essays!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Throughout the 1990s, I regularly taught an intermediate course in the Theory of Criticism.\u00a0 At various intervals in the course, I would give students a brief essay providing an overview of the unit we were studying.\u00a0 I used the Hazard Adams anthology Critical Theory Since Plato, and always assigned the selection from Frye (the second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[52,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frye-and-contemporary-scholarship","category-literary-criticism"],"yoast_head":"\n