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Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye Quotes

Literary critic

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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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“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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“It is clear that all verbal structures with meaning are verbal imitations of that elusive psychological and physiological process known as thought, a process stumbling through emotional entanglements, sudden irrational convictions, involuntary gleams of insight, rationalized prejudices, and blocks of panic and inertia, finally to reach a completely incommunicable intuition.”

ThinkingProcessKnownClearEmotionalPrejudiceStructureConvictionInsightIntuitionBlockPsychologicalPanicIrrationalImitationElusiveInertiaStumblingGleamInvoluntaryPhysiologicalEntanglement
Book:Anatomy of Criticism
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