Northrop Frye on Canada

About the Author

Northrop Frye (1912-1991) was one of the twentieth century's most influential English scholars and literary critics. Northrop Frye was a professor in the Department of English at Victoria University in the University of Toronto from 1939 until his death. His works include Words with Power and Anatomy of Criticism.

Jean O'Grady is associate editor of the Collected Works of Northrop Frye at Victoria College, University of Toronto.

David Staines is Dean of Arts at the University of Ottawa.


Product Description

Northrop Frye is conceivably Canada's most celebrated literary theorist, but his role in the country's cultural evolution has perhaps been overlooked by later Canadian scholars in favour of his better-known literary criticism. This collection brings together all of the writings of Northrop Frye, both published and heretofore unpublished, on the subject of Canadian literature and culture. From his early book reviews of the 1930s and 1940s through his explorations of the patterns of Canadian literature in the fifties, to his cultural commentaries of the sixties, seventies, and eighties (including all his essays from The Bush Garden and Divisions on a Ground), Northrop Frye on Canada is vivid testimony to his position as an astute critic of his country's literature and a vital participant in its cultural evolution.
All of Frye's writings on Canadian literature and culture - essays, articles, reviews, and speeches - are published in their entirety and are accompanied by a detailed introduction and contextual headnotes to each piece. Gathered from more than fifty years of Frye's career, the collection shows Frye as a careful and caring critic of Canada, and is demonstrative of his importance as the cultural commentator on Canada.