said I felt distressed at the thought of a city going up in smoke, but the thought of a chain-reaction blowing the whole world to pieces filled me with profound peace.
Entry, 20 Feb. 1950, 130, an informal discussion with colleagues on “the H-bomb,” The Diaries of Northrop Frye: 1942–1955 (2001), CW, 8.
When Russian and American spokesmen both tell us that nobody would start an atomic war because there would be no sense in such a thing and nobody could gain anything at all from it, we are not reassured. We simply do not believe that human society is as sane as that any more.
“The View from Here” (1980), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Atwood, Margaret
Margaret Atwood, like the CN Tower, is a free-standing structure, and needs no patronizing props of reference to her sex or her nationality.
“Margaret Eleanor Atwood” (1983), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
Audiences
The writer has two centres of gravity: one in his own time and audience; the other in our time and in us. It is a mysterious but primary fact of literature that a poet remote from us in space and time and culture can still communicate his central vision to us, though we may admire him for reasons quite unintelligible to him or his age.
“Tradition and Change in the Theory of Criticism” (1969), Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.
Any dramatist who knew his audience as well as Shakespeare would know that the important difference in it is not the difference between intelligent and stupid people, but the difference between intelligent and stupid responses to the play, both of which may exist in the same mind.
“A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance; II, Making Nature Afraid” (1963), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Shakespeare and the Renaissance (2010), CW, 28.
… to say that society should be tolerant is as fallacious as saying that the artist should be a good man. Both these things are true, but on different grounds. The role of the artist & the quality of art depends primarily on the quality of the audience’s imaginative response.
Entry, Notebook 8 (1946–58), Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Renaissance Literature (2006), CW, 20.
Austen, Jane
Jane is a blind spot to me: I enjoy reading her for relaxation and I admire her skill and ingenuity, but I never feel much sense of cultural infusion, of the kind I require from a great writer.
Entry, 23 Aug. 1942, 75, The Diaries of Northrop Frye: 1942–1955 (2001), CW, 8.
Authority
I believe that one of the intellectual activities of our time consists in trying to see what is behind the social and political façade of authority.
“The Wisdom of the Reader” (1979), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
Every writer, past or present, big or little, is, by the act of writing, making a bid for authority, for filling a place in our imaginative experience that no one else can fill in quite the same way.
“Literary Criticism” (1963), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.
Authority is of the subject: this is what equalizes teacher & student.
“On Education II” (post-1972), 26, Northrop Frye’s Fiction and Miscellaneous Writings (2007), CW, 25.
All personal authority comes from teachers who want to stop being teachers.
Entry, Notebook 50 (1987–90), 493, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.
The source of actual or “temporal” authority in society is seldom hard to locate. It is always in the near vicinity of whatever one pays one’s taxes to.
“The Problem of Spiritual Authority in the Nineteenth Century” (1964), Northrop Frye’s Writings on the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (2005), CW, 17.
The authority of the logical argument, the repeatable experiment, the established fact, the compelling work of art, is the only authority that exacts no bows or salutes. It is not sacrosanct, for what is true today may be inadequately true tomorrow, but it is what holds society together for today.
“The Ethics of Change: The Role of the University” (1968), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
We have seen that spiritual authority begins in the recognition of truth, and truth usually has about it some quality of the objective, something presented to us.
“The Problem of Spiritual Authority in the Nineteenth Century” (1964), Northrop Frye’s Writings on the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (2005), CW, 17.
There is only one real authority in society, and that is the authority of the arts and sciences, the authority of logical reasoning, uncooked evidence, repeatable experiments, verifiable scholarship, precise and disciplined creative imagination.
“Universities and the Deluge of Cant” (1972), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
No human being or human institution is fit to be trusted with any temporal authority that is not subject to cancellation by some other authority.
The Double Vision (1991), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
… authority in the sciences is thus impersonal, and comes from the subject itself; authority in the arts is personal, and derives from individual genius. We still need loyalty to something with enough authority to form a community, but it must be a free authority, something that fulfils and does not diminish the individual. Such an authority can ultimately only be the kind of authority that education embodies.
“The Ethics of Change: The Role of the University” (1968), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
The authority of the logical argument, the repeatable experiment, the compelling imagination, is the final authority in society, and it is an authority that demands no submission, no subordinating, no lessening of dignity. As this authority is the same thing as freedom, the university is also the only place in society where freedom is defined.
“A Revolution Betrayed: Freedom and Necessity in Education” (1970), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Authorship
A few novelists, most of them bad ones, may eke out a small living by writing, or even hit a best-seller jackpot; but a poet would have to be spectacularly bad before he could live on his poetry.
“Culture and the National Will” (1957), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
Autobiography
Autobiography is, like blank verse, very easy to write and very hard to write well.
“Herbert Read’s The Innocent Eye” (1947), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003),
