The tricky or boastful gods of ancient myths and primitive folk tales are characters of the same kind that turn up in Faulkner or Tennessee Williams. — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
Characters tend to be either for or against the quest. If they assist it, they are idealized as simply gallant or pure; if they obstruct it, they are characterized as simply villainous or cowardly. Hence every typical character...tends to have… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
I soon realized that a student of English literature who does not know the Bible does not understand a good deal of what is… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
Our country has shown a lack of will to resist its own disintegration .. . Canada is practically the only country left in the… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
“The only thing that words can do with any real precision or accuracy is hang together. Accuracy of description in language is not possible… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
The bedrock of doubt is the total nothingness of death. Death is a leveler, not because everybody dies, but because nobody understands what death… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
Physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature, and a student of it says that he is learning physics, not nature. Art, like… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
Literature as a whole is not an aggregate of exhibits with red and blue ribbons attached to them, like a cat-show, but the range… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
One doesn't bother to believe the credible: the credible is believed already, by definition. There's no adventure of the mind. — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
“Tendintele autoritate ale conservatorismului trebuie corectate prin mituri ale libertatii, in vreme ce un simt conservator al ordinii trebuie sa tempereze tendintele liberalismului spre… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
Literature is a human apocalypse, man's revelation to man, and criticism is not a body of adjudications, but the awareness of that revelation, the… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
“The particular myth that's been organizing this talk, and in a way the whole series, is the story of the Tower of Babel in… — Northrop Frye Copy Share Image
