Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays by Northrop Frye (PDF)

Description

Striking out at the conception of criticism as restricted to mere opinion or ritual gesture, Northrop Frye wrote this magisterial work proceeding on the assumption that criticism is a structure of thought and knowledge in its own right. In four brilliant essays on historical, ethical, archetypical, and rhetorical criticism, employing examples of world literature from ancient times to the present, Frye reconceived literary criticism as a total history rather than a linear progression through time.Literature, Frye wrote, is “the place where our imaginations find the ideal that they try to pass on to belief and action, where they find the vision which is the source of both the dignity and the joy of life.” And the critical study of literature provides a basic way “to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in.”Harold Bloom contributes a fascinating and highly personal preface that examines Frye’s mode of criticism and thought (as opposed to Frye’s criticism itself) as being indispensable in the modern literary world.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Simply overpowering in the originality of its main concepts, and dazzling in the brilliance of its applications of them. Here is a book fundamental enough to be entitled Principia Critica.” ― Commonweal”An attempt to give a synoptic view of the scope, theory, principles, and techniques of literary criticism. . . . The book is continuously informed by original and incisive thought, by fine perception, and by striking observations upon literature in general and upon particular works.” ― Modern Language Review”Does literary criticism need a conceptual universe of its own? Professor Frye has written a brilliantly suggestive and encyclopedically erudite book to prove that it does; and he has done his impressive best to provide a framework for this universe. His book is a signal achievement; it is tight, hard, paradoxical, and genuinely witty. . . . [Professor Frye] is the most exciting critic around; I do not think he is capable of writing a page which does not offer some sort of intellectual reward.” ― Hudson Review”This is a brilliant but bristling book, an important though thoroughly controversial attempt to establish order in a disorderly field…. Mr. Frye has wit, style, audacity, immense learning, a gift for opening up new and unexpected perspectives in the study of literature…. It would be hopeless to attempt a brief summary of Mr. Frye’s dazzlingly counterpointed classifications.” ― The Nation About the Author Northrop Frye was University Professor in the University of Toronto and Professor of English in Victoria College, University of Toronto. His books include Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (Princeton).

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐To be fair to Frye, it’s an anatomy and not an archeology or genealogy of literature criticism. It’s an “encyclopaedic farrago” (his term). He knows his Aristotle and Plato, and some Freud, Jung, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Cassirer. And he knows biblical, classical and English literature. His attempt at divvying things up and boxing them in may have been informed by positivism and pragmatism, which I take it may have been the dominant philosophical schools in (Eastern) North America in the 50s. He cannot, perhaps, be blamed for the circumstance that the world was at the cusp, or already in the thralls of (outside of his little North American province) major revolutions in thought about literature, arts, and culture. Deleuze, Guarrari, Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, Levy-Strauss, Bataille, Mauss, Baudrillard, Chomsky, Saussure, Barthes, Dilthey, Gadamer, Adorno… the list goes on and on: they were either active during that same time when in his little bubble Freye wrote his book, or they would be active soon after, which is a bit of bad luck. His book was out of date in the moment it appeared. He can, however, be blamed for not once mentioning the movement that first put literature criticism on the map, a movement that took place not in England but in Germany, from Winckelmann to Herder to the Schlegels. Frye suggests “anatomy” as a modern replacement for Manippean satire–are we to take this, tongue in cheek, as suggestion not to take him too seriously; a hint that he himself is not taking himself too seriously? That would enhance our sympathy for his project–but I don’t think so. He is serious! In his untimely deliberation he seeks to pin down something that is just about to explode into a million fragment. Did he not realise he was treading in a minefield? Why re-issue, why have Harold Bloom write a new foreword? Well, for Bloom it makes sense: he’s himself leaving the stage, and it’s an opportunity to publicly reminisce about Freye’s lectures he heard as a young man. To be on the safe side, Bloom himself terms Frye’s book a “period piece.” So, all we have to add is: a “provincial” one. Having said this, it’s an attractive province; I read the entire book (admittedly swimmingly) and got a few ideas from it to follow up. The book remains on my shelf, I’ve not ditched it (yet). Why read it today? Well, really only as a period piece, as Bloom rightly says: if you’re interested in English literature; if you’re interested in the history of literature criticism in North America, mid-20th century. It is similar to, say, reading biology books from the time of Linneus and before Goethe or Darwin: the static categorisation of life forms makes perfect sense, except it tells you next to nothing about the dynamics of the field.

⭐The book promises an “Anatomy of Criticism”. As a natural-language and pragmatics researcher, I was very interested in this topic–how can one criticize political decisions? Or cooking? Or relationships? How can one explain errors such that others can understand, and correct them?Instead, the author assumes you already know that “criticism” ACTUALLY means “what art critics do”, with an emphasis on literary criticism. Of course. So here we go:Those who can’t do, teach.Those who can’t teach, criticize.Those who can’t criticize, criticize the critics.And this guy is a bloviating circumlocuting prolix literature professor of the worst sort, which makes “Absalom, Absalom”, the only book I’ve literally fallen asleep reading, sparkle in comparison.I guess this makes me a meta-meta-creator-critic.Read “Language in Thought and Action” by Hayakawa if you want to actually learn something.

⭐Only book that I know that creates a true theoretical model for literature. To read is like to learn a language. A professor let me borrow his copy at Vanderbilt in 1970. He said we didn’t have it for a course because “It was too difficult for us”, which really pissed me off. So I never gave it back. But, I read it thoroughly, over and over. I bought this most recent copy for my stepson who is a ridiculously brainy thirty year old. He is devouring it. You have to have a deep hunger to appreciate and endure this book, but in the end it is such a treasure.

⭐While his theories are sometimes very difficult to understand, you get a very comprehensive view of the science of literature from one of the great scholars of this century. He also does a wonderful job intertwining many other scholars into his own analysis of literature. This is a great first step for anyone beginning a journey into myth criticism.

⭐Ugh, difficult to understand. I needed to get this book for school, and I didn’t like it at all.

⭐This is a must for everyone who is serious about literature. It is the foundation stone of anatomic criticism, which is very useful to trace patterns in books that go beyond the superficial level of ‘elements, characters etc’

⭐Articulate perfection. Gives credence and reassurance to those of us who make a life’s work creating and study romantic literature.

⭐A classic of literary criticism, arguably one of the most influential texts of literary criticism of the 20th century. Our Bible in graduate school.

⭐Todo un clásico para aquellas personas que sean metódicas e idealistas y un manual imprescindible para aquellas personas que se quieran dedicar a la crítica literaria. Ensayos geniales de una de las mentes más privilegiadas en este campo

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