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Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye Quotes

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Famous Northrop Frye Quotes

“Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in words: the most primitive nations have poetry, but only quitewell developed civilizations can produce good prose. So don't think of poetry as a perverse and unnatural way of distorting ordinary prose statements: prose is a much less natural way of speaking than poetry is. If you listen to small children, and to the amount of chanting and singsong in their speech, you'll see what I mean.”

IfsThinkingWayMeanChildrenPoetryNationsNaturalSimpleProducePoetAmountCivilizationSpeechOrdinaryDirectOneselfStatementsProsePoetry IsPrimitiveUnnaturalSmall ChildChantingExpressing Oneself
Author:Northrop Frye
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“Science begins with the world we have to live in, accepting its data and trying to explain its laws. From there, it moves toward the imagination: it becomes a mental construct, a model of a possible way of interpreting experience. The further it goes in this direction, the more it tends to speak the language of mathematics, which is really one of the languages of the imagination, along with literature and music. Art, on the other hand, begins with the world we construct, not with the world we see. It starts with the imagination, and then works toward ordinary experience.”

WorldWayTryingArtHandsMovingLawScienceLiteratureSpeakLanguageImaginationAcceptingModelsOrdinaryMathematicsDataConstructsInterpretingLiterature And Music
Author:Northrop Frye
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“Work, as we usually think of it, is energy expended for a further end in view; play is energy expended for its own sake, as with children's play, or as manifestation of the end or goal of work, as in "playing" chess or the piano. Play in this sense, then, is the fulfillment of work, the exhibition of what the work has been done for.”

ThinkingChildrenHas BeensEndsDonePlayEnergyGoalWorkViewsSakeChessFulfillmentPianoManifestationExhibitionsPlaying Chess
Book:The Great Code: The Bible and Literature
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“Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have "really happened,"or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.”

ShowsTogetherCertainFallHappenedSpecialDyingCreationBiggerStructureSticksFolksMythTalesTendenciesOddFeaturesSignificanceRitualCategoriesFloodExceptionalExplainingSeriousnessMotifsInterchangeCreation Myths
Book:Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962
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“Real unity tolerates dissent and rejoices in variety of outlook and tradition, recognizes that it is man's destiny to unite and not divide, and understands that creating proletariats and scapegoats and second-class citizens is a mean and contemptible activity.”

MenMeanRealClassDestinyCitizensActivityCreatingTraditionUnityVarietyDividesRejoiceTolerateOutlookDissentProletariatScapegoatSecond Class Citizens
Book:Northrop Frye on Canada
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“The poet, however, uses these two crude, primitive, archaic forms of thought (simile and metaphor) in the most uninhibited way, because his job is not to describe nature, but to show you a world completely absorbed and possessed by the human mind.”

WorldWayMindHumansTwoUseShowsJobsFormPoetMetaphorHuman MindPossessedPrimitiveSimileCrude
Book:Collected Works of Northrop Frye: The educated imagination and other writings on critical theory 1933-1963
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“A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send checks to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas.”

PeopleBelieveDoeFactsSufferingLiteratureSpeakFictionReaderRadioGhostChecksReliefStationsCategoriesDislikeOperaQuarrelsSoapHeroinesSoap OperasRadio Stations
Book:Anatomy of Criticism
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“The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.”

PeopleHumansFactsUseAtheismStupidParticularKingsAncientMetaphorPositive AtheismDuesConventionsSheepEgyptRoyaltyShepherdsAffectionateAncient EgyptGregariousBeing Stupid
Book:Anatomy of Criticism
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