(1947, 2004), CW, 14.
At seventy-five the sense of perspective becomes more important than the sense of discovery. And yet the perspective includes a recapturing of discovery: the sun has been told often enough that it shines on nothing new, but it knows better, and keeps rising as placidly as ever.
“Preface to On Education” (1988), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
But as our personal future narrows, we become more aware of another dimension of time entirely, and may even catch glimpses of the powers and forces of a far greater creative design. Perhaps when we think we are working for the future we are really being contained in the present, though an infinite present, eternity in an hour, as Blake calls it. Perhaps too that present is also a presence, not an impersonal cause in which to lose ourselves, but a person in whom to find ourselves again.
“Address on Receiving the Royal Bank Award” (1978), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
As life goes on, the future becomes steadily more predictable, & the life consequently less interesting. Children fascinate us; old men bore us because they conceal no surprises.
Entry, Notebook 3 (1946–48), 146, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
Agnosticism
It is curious but significant that “gnostic” and “agnostic” are both dirty words in the Christian tradition: wisdom is not identified either with knowledge or with the denial of knowledge.
“Metaphor I,” The Great Code (1982), The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (2006), CW, 19.
The advantages of being an agnostic are obvious: one does not have to pretend that one knows things that in fact one does not know.
“Baccalaureate Sermon” (1967), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
Air
Air is the invisible medium by which things become visible, hence the spiritual is the power of making things visible, the medium of creative energy.
“Pistis and Mythos” (1972), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
But as the function of air is to be invisible, in order to make the physical world visible, so the spiritual world is invisible in order to make spiritual experience possible and visible to the participant.
“On the Bible” (1989), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
Now imagine a world where you could see the air: what you’d have is the image of fog, mist or vapour.
Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 503, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
The Spirit of the Bible is to the conscious world what the air is to the physical world. In the physical world, the things we see are visible only because the air is invisible. For the corresponding reason, the Spirit has to be invisible to consciousness, but is none the less a personal presence, personal as we are, present as everything around us is.
“To Come to Light” (1986), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
Alcohol
I find myself unusually sensitive to alcohol: I feel perceptibly more stupid after a single drink.
Entry, Notebook 3 (1946–48), 6, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
Algebra
Algebra is neither difficult nor easy to the keen student, but to, say, the girl who has already decided on a life of bridge and Saturday shopping it is impenetrably obscure. She “can’t do” algebra because it has no place in her vision of life. Nevertheless the educational system mildly compels her at least to try a little algebra, because this is a democracy, and it is her right to be exposed to quadratic equations however little she wants them.
“Academy without Walls” (1961), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.
Alice in Wonderland
If I hadn’t had the Alice books at an early age, it would have been like a couple of front teeth missing!
“Literature in Education” (1979), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
The principle is, if looking-glass reality is Alice’s dream why isn’t our reality the red king’s dream?
“New Fictional Formulas: Notebook 30o” (after 1965), 2, Northrop Frye’s Fiction and Miscellaneous Writings (2007), CW, 25.
In a slightly different but related area, one feels that Alice could hardly have held her Wonderland together if she had even reached the Menarche, much less become an adult.
“Second Variation: The Garden,” Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (1990), CW, 26.
I suppose the fascination with Alice is not that she’s a child in the state of innocence, but that she’s a preternatural child: what seven-year-old girls would have been like without the Fall.
Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 558, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
I’ve often said that if I understood the two Alice books I’d have very little left to understand about literature. Actually I think the Alice books, while they carry over, begin rather than sum up — a new twist to fiction that has to do with intellectual paradox & the disintegrating of the ego.
Entry, Notebook 24 (1970–72), 226, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.
Alien Beings
I think we have a feeling of being alienated and isolated by all that empty space and a need to populate it somehow with something which is humanly intelligible. Just as you have movies like Star Wars that talk about distant galaxies as being united by beings that look remarkably like Hollywood actors, so you have myths about unidentified flying objects that, again, tend to indicate that there is something way out there which is like ourselves.
“Between Paradise and Apocalypse” (1978), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
The sheer bumptiousness of Carl Sagan & others who want to communicate with beings in other worlds amazes me. They should be saying: look, there are several billion Yahoos here robbing, murdering, torturing, exploiting, abusing & enslaving each other: they’re stupid, malicious, superstitious and obstinate. Would you like to look at the .0001 per cent of them who are roughly presentable?
Entry, Notebook 44 (1986–91), 425, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.
Alienation
We live in a world that got along without us for billions of years, and could still get along without us, in fact still may. When this fact penetrates the public consciousness, a kind of alienation develops.
“Criticism as Education” (1979), Northrop Frye’s Writings
