Title: The Secular scripture and other writings on critical theory, 1976-1991 /
Authors: Frye, Northrop; Adamson, Joseph, 1950-; Wilson, Jean.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press,
Year: 2006
Subjects: Romanticism.; Criticism.; Critical theory; Literature History and criticism; Romance-language literature History and criticism Theory, etc.
Abstract: "Northrop Frye's The Secular Scripture (1976) explores the development of the romance as a literary form. This volume in the Collected Works of Northrop Frye series brings together The Secular Scripture and thirty shorter pieces on literary theory and criticism from the last fifteen years of Frye's life." "The Secular Scripture examines the enduring attraction and deep human significance of the romance genre in all its forms. In it, Frye provides a unique perspective on popular fiction and culture, and shows how romance forms have, by their very structural and conventional features, an ability to address both specific social issues and fundamental human concerns that span time and place. While distinguishing popular from elite culture, Frye insists that they are both ultimately two aspects of the same "human compulsion to create in the face of chaos." Together these late writings on critical theory reflect Frye's sense at the time that he was working "toward some kind of final statement," which eventually saw the light of day, only months before his death, as Words with Power (1990)."--Jacket.
Contents: 1. The secular scripture : a study of the structure of romance -- I. The word and world of man -- II. The context of romance -- III. Our lady of pain : heroes and heroines of romance -- IV. The bottomless dream : themes of descent -- V. Quis Hic Locus? : themes of ascent -- VI. The recovery of myth -- 2. Romance as masque -- 3. Letter to the editor of Parabola -- 4. The responsibilities of the critic -- 5. Comment on Peter Hughes's essay -- 6. Literature, history, and language -- 7. On translation -- 8. Extracts from The practical imagination : stories, poems, plays -- 9. Vision and cosmos -- 10. Literature as a critique of pure reason -- 11. Approaching the lyric -- 12. The survival of eros in poetry -- 13. The ouroboros -- 14. Literary and linguistic scholarship in a postliterate world -- 15. The end of history -- 16. Myth as the matrix of literature -- 17. The Koine of myth : myth as a universally intellible language -- 18. The symbol as a medium of exchange -- 19. The expanding world of metaphor -- 20. Extracts from The Harper handbook to literature -- 21. Letter to the editor of PMLA -- 22. Lacan and the full word -- 23. Literature and the visual arts -- 24. The journey as metaphor -- 25. Framework and assumption -- 26. Maps and territories -- 27. Epilogo -- 28. Auguries of experience -- 29. Literary and mechanical models -- 30. Literature as therapy -- 31. Response to papers on "Northrup Frye and eighteenth-century literature."