The Northrop Frye Handbook: A Biographical and Bibliographic Guide Available to Purchase

I am surely not the only former student of English literature who, more years ago than I care to remember, found the writing of the Canadian critic Northrop Frye (1912‐1991) a breath of fresh air after the stuffiness and feeling of claustrophobia induced by much of the New Critical close reading of texts prevalent at the time, not to mention the ubiquitous “Mr Eliot” on this side of the Atlantic. This was particularly true of his first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), a wonderful commentary on Blake: Julia Kristeva, no less, has described it as a “revelation”. Like many others, I...