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Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye Quotes

Literary critic

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Famous Northrop Frye Quotes

“No human society is too primitive to have some kind of literature. The only thing is that primitive literature hasn't yet become distinguished from other aspects of life: it's still embedded in religion, magic and social ceremonies.”

HumansKindStillsLiteratureSocialMagicAspectPrimitiveCeremonyDistinguishedHuman SocietyEmbeddedAspects Of Life
Book:Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962
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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.”

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Book:Collected Works of Northrop Frye: The educated imagination and other writings on critical theory 1933-1963
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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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“No matter how much experience we may gather in life, we can never in life get the dimension of experience that the imagination gives us. Only the arts and sciences can do that, and of these, only literature gives us the whole sweep and range of human imagination as it sees itself”

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Book:Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962
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