Home / Quotes / Quote by Northrop Frye

Quote by Northrop Frye

“The entire Bible, viewed as a "divine comedy," is contained within a U-shaped story of this sort, one in which man, as explained, loses the tree and water of life at the beginning of Genesis and gets them back at the end of Revelation.”

Quote by Northrop Frye

Author

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. more

You May Also Like

“The Book of Revelation, difficult as it may be for "literalists," becomes much simpler when we read it typologically, as a mosiac of allusions to Old Testament prophecy.”

May Book Difficult Revelations Prophecy Testament Old Testament Allusion Book Of Revelation

Author:Northrop Frye

“The supremacy of the verbal over the monumental has something about it of the supremacy of life over death.”

Book:The Great Code: The Bible and Literature

Source: The Great Code: The Bible and Literature

“Literally, the Bible is a gigantic myth, a narrative extending over the whole of time from creation to apocalypse, unified by a body of recurring imagery that "freezes" into a single metaphor cluster, the metaphors all being identified with the body of the Messiah, the man who is all men, the totality logoi who is one Logos, the grain of sand that is the world.”

Men World Whole Body Creation He Man Metaphor Myth Narrative Sand Grain Apocalypse Imagery Freeze Messiah Totality Extending Unified Logos Recurring Grains Of Sand Clusters

Author:Northrop Frye

“The bedrock of doubt is the total nothingness of death. Death is a leveler, not because everybody dies, but because nobody understands what death means.”

Mean Dies Doubt Nothingness Bedrock

Book:The Great Code: The Bible and Literature

Source: The Great Code: The Bible and Literature

“Man is constantly building anxiety-structures, like geodesic domes, around his social and religious institutions.”

Men Social Religious Building Anxiety Institutions Structure Domes

Book:The Great Code: The Bible and Literature

Source: The Great Code: The Bible and Literature

“Absolute certainty is not something I strive for anymore. I've learned the hard way that destiny usually looks upon our most strident convictions with amusement, or perhaps even pity.”

Way Looks Hard Destiny Absolutes Strive Conviction Pity Certainty I've Learned Amusement Hard Way Absolute Certainty

Author:Elizabeth Gilbert

“The twentieth century saw an amazing development of scholarship and criticism in the humanities, carried out by people who were more intelligent, better trained, had more languages, had a better sense of proportion, and were infinitely more accurate scholars and competent professional men than I. I had genius. No one else in the field known to me had quite that.”

People Men Humanity Language Known Saws Century Fields Development Genius Criticism Intelligent Proportion Scholar Accurate Twentieth Century Scholarship Competent

Book:Northrop Frye unbuttoned: wit and wisdom from the notebooks and diaries

Source: Northrop Frye unbuttoned: wit and wisdom from the notebooks and diaries

“Teaching literature is impossible; that is why it is difficult.”

Literature Difficult Impossible Teaching

Book:The Northrop Frye Quote Book

Source: The Northrop Frye Quote Book

“Writers don't seem to benefit much by the advance of science, although they thrive on superstitions of all kinds.”

Kind Seems Benefits All Kinds Thrive Superstitions

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

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

“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.”

Humans Kind Stills Literature Social Magic Aspect Primitive Ceremony Distinguished Human Society Embedded Aspects Of Life

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

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