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Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye Quotes

Literary critic

Northrop Frye was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, renowned for his extensive work on the Bible, mythology, and the literary imagination. His theories have had a significant impact on the field of literary criticism and have influenced many scholars and critics.

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Famous Northrop Frye Quotes

“Beauty and truth may be attributes of good writing, but if the writer deliberately aims at truth, he is likely to find that what he has hit is the didactic.”

Ifs Writing May Aim Attributes Good Writing Didactic

Book:Collected Works of Northrop Frye: The educated imagination and other writings on critical theory 1933-1963

Source: Collected Works of Northrop Frye: The educated imagination and other writings on critical theory 1933-1963

“Writing: I certainly do rewrite my central myth in every book, and would never read or trust any writer who did not also do so.”

Writing Book Myth

Author:Northrop Frye

“We have to look at the figures of speech a writer uses, his images and symbols, to realize that underneath all the complexity of human life that uneasy stare at an alien nature is still haunting us, and the problem of surmounting it still with us.”

Writing Humans Looks Stills Use Problem Realizing Figures Speech Symbols Aliens Human Life Staring Complexity Haunting Uneasy Figures Of Speech Complexity Of Human

Book:The Educated Imagination

Source: The Educated Imagination

“Most of my writing consists of an attempt to translate aphorisms into continuous prose.”

Writing Prose Aphorism Translate

Author:Northrop Frye

“A writers desire to write can only have come from previous experience of literature, and he'll start by imitating whatever he's read, which usually means what the people around him are writing.”

People Writing Mean Desire Literature Imitating

Book:The Northrop Frye Quote Book

Source: The Northrop Frye Quote Book

“For the serious mediocre writer convention makes him sound like a lot of other people; for the popular writer it gives him a formula he can exploit; for the serious good writer it releases his experiences or emotions from himself and incorporates them into literature, where they belong.”

People Giving Writing Literature Sound Emotion Serious Release Formulas Conventions Mediocre Exploits Good Writers

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

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

About the Author

Born: July 14, 1912
Died: January 23, 1991
Known for: Literary critic
Quotes: 123

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Literature Art Humans Men World People Criticism Imagination Language Structure Mind Ifs Knows May Metaphor Myth Study Thinking Use Writing

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Books & Sources

Anatomy of CriticismRelated source material

Educated Imagination and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933-1962Related source material

The Great Code: The Bible and LiteratureRelated source material

The Educated ImaginationRelated source material

The Northrop Frye Quote BookRelated source material

Northrop Frye on CanadaRelated source material

Biblical and Classical Myths: The Mythological Framework of Western CultureRelated source material

Collected Works of Northrop Frye: The educated imagination and other writings on critical theory 1933-1963Related source material

Northrop Frye's Late Notebooks, 1982-1990: Architecture of the Spiritual WorldRelated source material

Northrop Frye on Milton and BlakeRelated source material

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