Capitalism
By the mid-1930s the climate of opinion had totally reversed, at least in the student circles I was attached to. Then it was a generally accepted dogma that capitalism had had its day and was certain to evolve very soon, with or without a revolution, into socialism, socialism being assumed to be both a more efficient and a morally superior system.
The Double Vision (1991), Northrop Frye on Religion (2000), CW, 4.
I think, with the C.C.F., that capitalism is crashing around our ears, and that any attempt to build it up again will bring it down with a bigger crash.
“NF to HK,” 4 Sep. 1933, The Correspondence of Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932–1939 (1996), CW, 1.
Only capitalism exists, and that can go in one of two directions: towards increasingly decentralized democracy or towards increasingly centralized state capitalism administered by a bureaucratic dictatorship.
Entry, Notebook 11e (1978), 39, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
Communism in my youth (the depression period) was widely assumed to be both efficient and morally superior to capitalism. But capitalism didn’t evolve into communism; the two systems settled down into an adversary relation in which they could improve themselves only by borrowing features from each other.
Entry, Notebook 44 (1986–91), 10, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.
I think Americans are hardly aware of living under capitalism: what they want is democracy, whatever the economic basis for it is.
Entry, Note 53 (1989–90), 52, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.
Castaneda, Carlos
I glanced at a row of books by Carlos Castaneda recently, and saw that the earlier books were labelled “nonfiction” by the publisher and the later ones “fiction.” I dare say an interesting story lies behind that, but as the earlier and the later books appeared to be generically identical, the distinction was of little critical use.
“Framework and Assumption” (1985), “The Secular Scripture” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976–1991 (2006), CW, 18.
Catharsis
The attitude of detached concern is what is meant in literature by catharsis.
“Violence and Television” (1975), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.
There must be at least fifty theories on the market about the meaning of catharsis. I can perhaps save time by giving you the correct one, which by coincidence happens to be mine. I think that by “pity and fear” is meant the moral feelings that draw you either toward or away from certain characters.
“Literature as Therapy” (1989), “The Secular Scripture” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1976–1991 (2006), CW, 18.
Catholicism
There is no such thing as a Holy Catholic Church, but a church that knows it isn’t catholic and is sincerely trying to become so is certainly worthy of respect.
Entry, Notes 53 (1989–90), 93, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.
Once you accept some high-flown fable about the dissociation of sensibility & grab the Catholic Church, you get stuck with the Legion of Decency & all the meddlesome rule of priests.
Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 312, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
By the way, I must get rid of my fear of Catholicism long enough to distinguish the kinds of it that are purely Fascist & therefore factional (the paronomasia of national & natural religion as the Satanic analogy should be noted) from a cosmopolitan & liberal residue.
Entry, Notebook 34 (1946–50), 7, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks on Romance (2004), CW, 15.
Whatever value Catholicism has today is due to the fact that it’s confined, against its will, to spiritual authority. I’m beginning to wonder if the doctrine of the inseparability of theory and practice, which Christianity shares with Communism, isn’t a pretty pernicious doctrine.
Entry, 5 Jan. 1952, 14, The Diaries of Northrop Frye: 1942–1955 (2001), CW, 8.
Why is the religious satire exclusively Protestant: don’t Canadian Catholics ever laugh at themselves? Is it editorial predilection or Canadian poetry that admits so little right-wing satire?
“Letters in Canada: Poetry” (1958), Northrop Frye on Canada (2003), CW, 12.
The educated Catholic laity doesn’t believe in the autonomous infallible, non-contradictory church any more, and even the upper hierarchy only asserts that it does out of habit. Well, out of desire to maintain power.
Entry, Notes 53 (1989–90), 2, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 6.
Catholics perhaps have less trouble — or used to, anyway — because for them faith is essentially what runs the sacramental machinery, and that provides a continuity of action that takes the heat off the speculative mind. But the history of the Catholic Church certainly reveals the hysteria there.
Entry, Notebook 27 (1986), 444, Northrop Frye’s Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2000), CW, 5.
I’m afraid that Catholics show their broad-mindedness only in assuming that Protestants will have some interest in Catholicism, but it doesn’t seem to reverse.
Entry, 20 Apr. 1952, 259, The Diaries of Northrop Frye: 1942–1955 (2001), CW, 8.
Celts
… we find the most soaring imaginations, as a rule, in defeated or oppressed nations, like the Hebrews and the Celts.
“The Imaginative and the Imaginary” (1962), “The Educated Imagination” and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1933–1963 (2006), CW, 21.
The principle is that defeated nations have the greatest imaginations. Many people, certainly many poets, have been far more possessed imaginatively by the sense of Arthur’s historical existence than of, say, Alfred the Great’s, whose historicity is not open to question.
Entry, Notebook 21 (1969–76), 244, Northrop Frye’s Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), CW, 13.
Censorship
And while I have no idea what censors think they are doing, what they really are doing is defending the tinsel world of the soap opera and the low-grade movie against the adult competition that continually threatens to shatter it.
“Dr. Kinsey and the Dream Censor” (1948), Northrop Frye on Modern Culture (2003), CW, 11.
I draw the line against what is usually called hate literature, that is, something which deliberately churns up an hysterical hatred of a minority group. I think that there is a case for censorship there. Otherwise, censorship is such a self-defeating thing and it is based on a contempt for other peoples’ vision.
“Stevens and the Value of Literature” (1990), Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), CW, 24.
The difficulty with topical allusions is that they have to be subtle enough to get past the censor and broad enough to get across to the audience — an almost impossible requirement.
“The Tragedies of Nature and Fortune” (1961), referring specifically to allusions in the play Coriolanus, Northrop Frye’s Writings on Shakespeare and the Renaissance (2010), CW, 28.
Censorship is practically always wrong, because it invariably fastens on the