Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
by Northrop Frye
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Book Summary Information
Author: Northrop FryeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-09-25
ISBN: 0691069999
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Book Reviews of Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
Book Review: A Marvelous Book
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book in 1999, under the influence of a prominent professor of English literature; I waited until now to read it, and wish I hadn't. So might you, even if eminence in literary studies is not an aspiration of yours, as it wasn't for me. In the "Polemical Introduction" to this book Northrop Frye wishes for a systematic literary criticism, and says that one proof of its existence would be "an elementary textbook expounding its fundamental principles" -- but the four "essays" he goes on to deliver are themselves the closest approximation to this goal I've seen. In other words, *Anatomy of Criticism* might be the biggest treat for someone with some intellectual footing but no especially deep knowledge of literature; Frye's explanations of fundamental literary techniques and the means of classifying them are very satisfying and productive of a greater "practical" appreciation of literary art.
Late in the book, Frye proposes we adopt the term "anatomy" as a less-misleading critical term for the prose genre more commonly known as "Menippean satire" (writing critiquing the world of ideas through characters expressly intended to be mouthpieces for one intellectual standpoint or another); and an element of his own *Anatomy* is thrown into relief, the vast but lightly worn philological and philosophical learning which informs his system. Although Frye does talk about archetypes, it would be exceptionally facile to view him as a "Jungian" critic; he borrows from many sources, in informed and non-dogmatic ways -- certainly his discreet use of some themes from Nietzsche is the most genteel appropriation of that overly-attractive thinker I've seen. His ability to anticipate the directions criticism would be heading in during the following decades is also impressive (the aforementioned professor once told us that Frye had considered titling the book "Structuralist Poetics", and although I'm unsure of the factual status of that claim there's little in the book that would be unsuitable to it).
The element of Frye's worldview which is indubitably central for his project is his having been an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada. Ordinarily "Christian" academics are intent on making a holy mess of the construal of some unpleasant corner of reality, but Frye makes a convincing case that interpreting medieval and modern literature without an understanding of Biblical typology would be like "Hamlet without the Prince" (perhaps in a very concrete way). Another recurring element of that worldview, less central to the theoretical core of the book but very admirable from the vantage point of the present, is a political liberalism which refuses to join sides against the people; although Frye was understandably critical of the idea that official Soviet culture represented a pitch of perfection regarding the enlightenment of the masses, his comments regarding the "proletarian" character of certain directions in art and his espousal of a classless society as a fundamental goal of culture leave little to be desired from a left-of-center standpoint.
Learn from my mistake: don't wait nine years to read this.
Summary of Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
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.
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