external world.
Entry, Notebook 54-8 (late 1972–77), 68, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Romance (2004), CW, 15.
Allegory
Allegorical interpretation, as a method of criticism, begins with the fact that allegory is a structural element in narrative: it has to be there, and is not added by critical interpretation alone. In fact, all commentary, or the relating of the events of a narrative to conceptual terminology, is in one sense allegorical interpretation.
“Allegory” (1965), “The Critical Path” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975 (2009), CW, 27.
We have allegory when one literary work is joined to another, or to a myth, by a certain interpretation of meaning rather than by structure.
“Myth, Fiction, and Displacement” (1961), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.
Alumni
There are now only two groups of people who have any really long-term and continuous relationship to the university: the alumni and the graduate students in the humanities working on their Ph.D.’s.
“Convocation Address, York University” (1969), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Amateurism
… practically everybody confuses the merits of practising an art as a yoga with the objective merits of its products, sooner or later. That is, they want to give up their amateur standing as soon as possible. The irony of the situation is that if most writers of poetry & other dabblers would think entirely of the benefit to them & not at all of publication, the publishable merit of what they produce would be greatly & constantly increased.
Entry, Notebook 3 (1946–48), 57, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
… he stands for a spirit no professional can do without: the spirit of painting for fun.
“Water-Colour Annual” (1944), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
Ambiguity
So the term ambiguous, which is pejorative when applied to descriptive verbal structures, is an essential concept of literature.
“The Transferability of Literary Concepts” (1955), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.
Americanism
I do not see how America can find its identity, much less avoid chaos, unless a massive citizens’ resistance develops which is opposed to exploitation and impersonality on the one hand, and to jack-booted radicalism on the other. It would not be a new movement, but simply the will of the people, the people as a genuine society strong enough to contain and dissolve all mobs. It would be based on a conception of freedom as the social expression of tolerance, and on the understanding that violence and lying cannot produce anything except more violence and more lies. It would be politically active, because democracy has to do with majority rule and not merely with enduring the tyranny of organized minorities. It would not be conservative or radical in its direction, but both at once.
“America: True or False?” (1969), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
It is a peculiarity of American social mythology that its mythology of the past largely contradicts its mythology of the present.
“Report on the ‘Adventures’ Readers” (1965), Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Americanization
I’m not greatly worried about what is called the Americanization of Canada. What people mean when they speak of Americanization has been just as lethal to American culture as it has been to Canadian culture. It’s a kind of levelling down which I think every concerned citizen of democracy should fight, whether he is a Canadian or an American.
“From Nationalism to Regionalism: The Maturing of Canadian Culture” (1980), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
… when Canada was, in the stock phrase, “flooded with American programmes,” it was clear that the majority of Canadians preferred the flood to any Canadian ark that would float above it.
“Across the River and Out of the Trees” (1980), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
But of course America itself is becoming Americanized in this sense, and the uniformity imposed on New Delhi and Singapore, or on Toronto and Vancouver, is no greater than that imposed on New Orleans or Baltimore.
“Conclusion to Literary History of Canada” (1965), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
Americans & Canadians
I remember that practically every American I met began the conversation by producing a Canadian relative or ancestor. So, if asked to name the chief products of Canada, I’d begin with “Americans.”
“Education and the Humanities” (1947), referring to a year spent at Harvard University, Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education (2001), CW, 7.
Anagnorisis
Much of my critical thinking has turned on the double meaning of Aristotle’s term anagnorisis, which can mean “discovery” or “recognition,” depending on whether the emphasis falls on the newness of the appearance or on its reappearance.
“Introduction” (1990), Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (2008), CW, 26.
Epiphany is not a new experience: it is the knowledge that one has the experience: it’s recognition or anagnorisis.
Entry, Notebook 19 (1964–67), 152, The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972: The Critical Comedy (2002), CW, 9.
Anagogy
When we pass into anagogy, nature becomes, not the container, but the thing contained, and the archetypal universal symbols — the city, the garden, the quest, the marriage — are no longer the desirable forms that man constructs inside nature, but are themselves the forms of nature. Nature is now inside the mind of an infinite man who builds his cities out of the Milky Way. This is not reality, but it is the conceivable or imaginative limit of desire, which is infinite, eternal, and hence apocalyptic.
“Second Essay: Ethical Criticism: Theory of Symbols” (1957), Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (2006), CW, 22.
Analogy
Analogy establishes the parallels between human life and natural phenomena, and identity conceives of a “sun-god” or a “tree-god.”
“Myth, Fiction, and Displacement” (1961), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.
Anarchism
The anarchism of today seem[s] almost as indifferent to the future as to the past: one protest will be followed by another, because even if one issue is resolved society will still be “sick,” but there appears to be no clear programme of taking control or assuming
