as an “advanced” view. But it may begin to look more central with the repudiation of Marxism in Marxist countries, the growing uneasiness with the anti-intellectualism in American life, and the steadily decreasing dividends of terrorism in Third World Countries.
The Double Vision (1991), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
General attitude toward life: That of a liberal bourgeois intellectual, which I consider the flower of humanity.
“Chatelaine’s Celebrity I.D.” (1982), Interviews with Northrop Frye, CW, 24.
Breath
Breathing is the most primary of all concerns, the act marking the transition from the embryo to the baby, and our most continuous activity thereafter. We can go for days without food, or for a lifetime without sex, but ten minutes without breathing and we “expire.”
“Spirit and Symbol,” Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (2008), CW, 26.
British Empire
There is a great deal to be said for the British Commonwealth, but everything connected with the British Empire, from the Indian question to the defence of Singapore & Hong Kong, is entirely vicious.
Entry, Notebook 42a (1942–44), 5, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Romance (2004), CW, 15.
Broadcasting
I think the combination of what are called private broadcasters and of nationally subsidized broadcasting is a rather healthy thing for a country.
“The Primary Necessities of Existence” (1985), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
Browning, Robert
At the end, when English becomes a long-dead language, it is not difficult to imagine a professor in the remote future, who does not altogether understand the true genius of our tongue, saying: “This man was the greatest of all, for the qualities of the other great ones are combined and blended in him.”
“Robert Browning: An Abstract Study” (1932–33), Northrop Frye’s Student Essays, 1932–1938 (1997), CW, 3.
Buddhism
Xy [Christianity] stands for the triumph over death; Buddhism for the triumph over birth. The latter is a Thanatos vision because death is the only visible symbol of Nirvana, just as life after death, or rebirth, is the only visible symbol of heaven.
Entry, Notebook 12 (1968–70), 420, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.
The Buddhists keep saying, with tremendous and unending prolixity, that the subject-object duality is horseshit. Okay, it’s horseshit: what’s so infernally difficult about it. The fact that it’s so difficult to overcome derives from the fact that the metaphorical kernel of subject & object is the contrast of life & death. The person from whom that’s disappeared really is a sage.
Entry, Notebook 44 (1986–91), 109, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.
Buddha promises an unborn world; Jesus a paradise or unfallen world.
Entry, Notebook 6 (1967–68), 2, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.
Bultmann, Rudolf
I don’t understand the twentieth-century attraction for these antiseptic sounding words beginning with “de.” I don’t know why Bultmann speaks of demythologizing the Bible when he means remythologizing it. And I don’t understand in literary criticism why Derrida speaks of deconstruction when what he means is reconstruction. But that’s just original sin.
“Symbolism in the Bible” (1981–82), Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
Bureaucracy
I think the only government of which the human race is capable is more or less efficient or corrupt bureaucracy. The degrees of efficiency and corruption are what make the difference.
“Towards an Oral History of the University of Toronto” (1982), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
The work of most middle-class people today consists mainly in the polluting of paper, or what is known as filling out forms.
“The Responsibilities of the Critic” (1976), “The Secular Scripture” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976–1991 (2006), CW, 18.
Burton, Robert
That is, having written one of the most delightful books in the language, he knows that reading that book would be a much better cure for melancholy than most of the remedies he prescribes.
“Rencontre: The General Editor’s Introduction” (1960s), discussing the “ethical tradition of rhetorical prose” of Anatomy of Melancholy, Northrop Frye on Literature and Society, 1936–1989: Unpublished Papers (2002), CW, 10.
Byron, Lord
The main appeal of Byron’s poetry is in the fact that it is Byron’s.
“Lord Byron” (1959), Northrop Frye’s Writings on the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (2005), CW, 17.
Byzantium
You have to sail to Byzantium as well as be there.
Entry, Notebook 50 (1987–90), 520, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.
C
C.C.F.
I think with the C.C.F. that a co-operative state is necessary to preserve us from chaos. I think with Liberals that it is impossible to administer that state at present.
“NF to HK,” 4 Sep. 1933, referring to the Canadian Co-operative Federation (forerunner of the New Democratic Party or NDP), The Correspondence of Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932–1939 (1996), CW, 1.
Callaghan, Morley
Morley Callaghan’s books, I think I am right in saying, were sometimes banned by the public library in Toronto — I forget what the rationalization was, but the real reason could only have been that if a Canadian were to do anything so ethically dubious as write, he should at least write like a proper colonial and not like someone who had lived in the Paris of Joyce and Gertrude Stein.
“Across the River and Out of the Trees” (1980), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
Canada
Our country is abstract to ourselves.
“CRTC Guru” (1968–69), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
If one comes from a relatively small country culturally, that smallness provides a perspective difficult to explain. I should have been a totally different kind of critic as an American, just as, say, Kierkegaard would have been totally different as a
