Northrop Frye’s Notebooks for Anatomy of Critcism

481 Pages·03.813 MB·English

by  Robert Denham, Northrop Frye

Collected Works of Northrop Frye
VOLUME 23
Northrop Frye’s Notebooks for
Anatomy of Criticism
The Collected Edition of the Works of Northrop Frye has been planned
and is being directed by an editorial committee under the aegis of
Victoria University, through its Northrop Frye Centre. The purpose of
the edition is to make available authoritative texts of both published
and unpublished works, based on an analysis and comparison of all
available materials, and supported by scholarly apparatus, including
annotation and introductions. The Northrop Frye Centre gratefully
acknowledges financial support, through McMaster University, from the
Michael G. DeGroote family.
Editorial Committee
General Editor
Alvin A. Lee
Associate Editor
Jean O’Grady
Editors
Joseph Adamson
Robert D. Denham
Michael Dolzani
A.C. Hamilton
David Staines
Advisers
Robert Brandeis
Paul Gooch
Eva Kushner
Jane Millgate
Ron Schoeffel
Clara Thomas
Jane Widdicombe
Northrop Frye’s
Notebooks for
Anatomy of Criticism
VOLUME 23
Edited by
Robert D. Denham
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© Victoria University, University of Toronto, and Robert D. Denham
(preface, introduction, annotation) 2007
Printed in Canada
isbn 978-0-8020-9362-2
Printed on acid-free paper
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Frye, Northrop, 1912–1991
Northrop Frye’s notebooks for Anatomy of criticism / edited by Robert
D. Denham.
(Collected works of Northrop Frye v. 23)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8020-9362-2
1. Criticism. 2. Frye, Northrop, 1912–1991 – Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
I. Denham, Robert D. II. Title. III. Series.
pn81.f757 2007 801(cid:99).95 c2007-903006-8
This volume has been published with the assistance of a grant from
Victoria University.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the
Ontario Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its
publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the
Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
Once more, for S.D.D. and K.E.D
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Preface
ix
Abbreviations and Shortened Forms
xiii
Introduction
xvii
Published and Forthcoming Notebooks
xxvii
Notebook 7
3
Notebook 37
113
Notebook 38
128
Notes for Anatomy of Criticism
157
Notebook 35
159
Notebook 36
205
vviiiiii IntrCodounctetinotns
Notebook 18
260
Notebook 30d
300
Notebook 30e
309
Notebook 30f
318
Notebook 30g
321
Notebook 30h
324
Notebook 30i
327
Notebook 30j
330
Notebook 30k
332
Notebook 30l
335
Notebook 30o-a
341
Notebook 30q
347
Notes
351
Index
413
Preface
This is the seventh and penultimate volume of Frye’s notebooks to
appear in the Collected Works of Northrop Frye. Those unfamiliar with
the form and intent of Frye’s notebooks can find those matters discussed
at some length in the introductions to the volumes already published:
Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual
World (CW, 5–6), The “Third Book” Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972:
The Critical Comedy (CW, 9), Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the
Bible and Other Religious Texts (CW, 13), Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on
Romance (CW, 15), and Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on the Renaissance (CW,
20). The notebooks in the present collection were written over the course
of more than a dozen years. Frye began writing in Notebook 7 in the late
1940s and the last half of Notebook 18 dates from about 1960 and contin-
ues at least two years beyond that. (He began this notebook about the
time he had completed the manuscript for Anatomy of Criticism in 1956).
Had my co-editor Michael Dolzani and I not decided to keep each note-
book as a discrete unit, part of Notebook 18 could well have been
included in The “Third Book” Notebooks. In any event, it provides a transi-
tion to that volume. Most of the material in the present notebooks, how-
ever, was written before 1956 and relates to Anatomy of Criticism.
Because some of the notebooks are difficult to date precisely, arrang-
ing them according to strict chronology is difficult. Nevertheless, I have
let Notebooks 7 and 18 serve as bookends for Notebooks 37, 38, 35, and
36, which is the chronological sequence as best as can be determined.
(No significance should be attached to the notebook numbers them-
selves, which were simply assigned sequentially when I inventoried and
catalogued the notebooks in 1992.) Between Notebooks 38 and 35 are
Frye’s holograph notes for the Third Essay of Anatomy of Criticism, along