Educating the Imagination: Northrop Frye, Past, Present, and Future

by Alan Bewell, Neil ten Kortenaar, Germaine Warkentin

Overview

Northrop Frye's long career made him Canada's most creative public intellectual. A century after his birth, his many books demonstrate a powerful vision of the resources of the human imagination. Frye's critical theory sought the continuities linking human creation in all spheres of life, trusting in the idea of a single human community sharing myths, stories, and images that express shared visions and desires. The essays in Educating the Imagination illustrate the extraordinary range of Frye's ideas. Robert Bringhurst examines how Frye mapped the mind, Ian Balfour considers what "belief" meant for Frye, and Gordon Teskey re-examines two of the critic's great subjects - Blake and Milton. Michael Dolzani and Thomas Willard discuss Frye's symbolism, and Robert Tally looks at his utopianism. A strong thread running through all the essays is Frye's interest in the Romantic era, as Mark Ittenson shows. Three essays pair Frye with other titans of the time: Fredric Jameson, Paul de Man, and Jacques Derrida. Troni Y. Grande examines a gender issue in Frye's theory of tragedy, and J. Edward Chamberlin concludes by relating Frye's writings to songs, ceremonies of belief, and the common ground that they represent across cultures. Engaging with significant matters of contemporary concern, Educating the Imagination provides a renewed understanding of Northrop Frye and the fertility of his ideas about the imagination and society. Contributors include Ian Balfour (York), Robert Bringhurst, Adam Carter (Lethbridge), J. Edward Chamberlin (Toronto), Alexander Dick (British Columbia), Michael Dolzani (Baldwin Wallace), Troni Y. Grande (Regina), Mark Ittensohn (Zurich), Garry Sherbert (Regina), Robert T. Tally, Jr., (Texas State), Gordon Teskey (Harvard), and Thomas Willard (Arizona).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773597372
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Alan Bewell is chair of the Department of English at the University of Toronto.

Neil ten Kortenaar is professor of comparative literature and English at the University of Toronto.

Germaine Warkentin is professor emeritus of English at the University of Toronto.

Neil ten Kortenaar is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
Germaine Warkentin is professor emeritus of English at the University of Toronto and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Editorial Reviews

Written by an assembly of well-regarded Frye scholars, the essays in this collection are meant to explain Frye through permutations and applications, to make Frye meaningful in a modern context, and to look back and send forward Frye’s ideas, through the


"The wide scope of this volume and the range of disciplinary perspectives offered allow an impressively capacious understanding of Frye’s work to emerge. This is a rich and highly significant book." Jean Wilson, co-editor of “The Secular Scripture” and Ot

From the Publisher