Frye, Northrop (1912-1991), was a Canadian literary and social critic. Frye’s first book, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (1947), helped to unlock the mysteries of this English writer’s imaginative universe. It also showed the important role that the human imagination plays in the creation of the world. From Blake, Frye also learned that all works of literature incorporated similar basic structures. He outlined these forms in Anatomy of Criticism (1957).
Although known as a theoretical critic, Frye wrote many books of practical literary criticism, emphasizing William Shakespeare, John Milton, and English romantic writers. Frye defended the importance of literature in education in The Educated Imagination (1963) and The Well-Tempered Critic (1963). In The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982), Frye maintained that the Bible created the basic patterns within which people in the Western world think and act. Frye also contributed to Canadian studies, The Bush Garden (1971) being especially influential. Herman Northrop Frye was born on July 14, 1912, in Sherbrooke, Quebec. He died on Jan. 23, 1991.
