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Spiritus Mundi: Essays on Literature, Myth, and Society
This collection of a dozen major essays written in recent year is vintage Frye―the fine distillation of a lifetime of originative thinking about literature and its context. The essays in Spiritus Mundi―the title comes from one of Yeat's best known poems, "The Second Coming," and refers to the book that was supposedly the source of Yeat's apocalyptic vision of a "great beast, slouching toward Bethlehem"―are arranges in three groups of four essays each. The first four are about the "contexts of literature," the second are about the "mythological universe," and the last are studies of four of the great visionary or myth-making poets who have been enduring sources of interest for Milton, Blake, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens.
The volume is full of agreeable a delightful piece on charms and riddles is followed by an illuminating essay on Shakespearean romance. Like most of the other essays in the book, these two are compressed and elegant expositions of ideas that in the hands of a lesser writer would have required a book. In another selection Frye rescues Spengler from neglect and argues for the inclusion of The Decline of the West among the major imaginative books produced by the Western world. Elsewhere he advances the case for placing Copernicus in a pantheon composed primarily of literary figures. OF particular interest are several essays in which Frye comments personally and reflectively on the influence he has had on the study of literature and the reactions elicited by his work. In "The Renaissance of Books" he dissents from the opinion of the McLuhanites that the written word is showing signs of obsolescence and argues that books are "the technological instrument that makes democracy possible."
As the dozen essays collected here amply attest, Northrop Frye continues to be the most perceptive and most persuasive exponent of the power of mythological imagination―or as he himself calls it, "the mythological habit of mind"―written in English.
The volume is full of agreeable a delightful piece on charms and riddles is followed by an illuminating essay on Shakespearean romance. Like most of the other essays in the book, these two are compressed and elegant expositions of ideas that in the hands of a lesser writer would have required a book. In another selection Frye rescues Spengler from neglect and argues for the inclusion of The Decline of the West among the major imaginative books produced by the Western world. Elsewhere he advances the case for placing Copernicus in a pantheon composed primarily of literary figures. OF particular interest are several essays in which Frye comments personally and reflectively on the influence he has had on the study of literature and the reactions elicited by his work. In "The Renaissance of Books" he dissents from the opinion of the McLuhanites that the written word is showing signs of obsolescence and argues that books are "the technological instrument that makes democracy possible."
As the dozen essays collected here amply attest, Northrop Frye continues to be the most perceptive and most persuasive exponent of the power of mythological imagination―or as he himself calls it, "the mythological habit of mind"―written in English.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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About the author
Northrop Frye
210 books306 followersBorn in Quebec but raised in New Brunswick, Frye studied at the University of Toronto and Victoria University. He was ordained to the ministry of the United Church of Canada and studied at Oxford before returning to UofT.
His first book, Fearful Symmetry, was published in 1947 to international acclaim. Until then, the prophetic poetry of William Blake had long been poorly understood, considered by some to be delusional ramblings. Frye found in it a system of metaphor derived from Paradise Lost and the Bible. His study of Blake's poetry was a major contribution. Moreover, Frye outlined an innovative manner of studying literature that was to deeply influence the study of literature in general. He was a major influence on, among others, Harold Bloom and Margaret Atwood.
In 1974-1975 Frye was the Norton professor at Harvard University.
Frye married Helen Kemp, an educator, editor and artist, in 1937. She died in Australia while accompanying Frye on a lecture tour. Two years after her death in 1986 he married Elizabeth Brown. He died in 1991 and was interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, Ontario. The Northrop Frye Centre at Victoria College at the University of Toronto was named in his honour.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop...
His first book, Fearful Symmetry, was published in 1947 to international acclaim. Until then, the prophetic poetry of William Blake had long been poorly understood, considered by some to be delusional ramblings. Frye found in it a system of metaphor derived from Paradise Lost and the Bible. His study of Blake's poetry was a major contribution. Moreover, Frye outlined an innovative manner of studying literature that was to deeply influence the study of literature in general. He was a major influence on, among others, Harold Bloom and Margaret Atwood.
In 1974-1975 Frye was the Norton professor at Harvard University.
Frye married Helen Kemp, an educator, editor and artist, in 1937. She died in Australia while accompanying Frye on a lecture tour. Two years after her death in 1986 he married Elizabeth Brown. He died in 1991 and was interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, Ontario. The Northrop Frye Centre at Victoria College at the University of Toronto was named in his honour.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 17, 2024
This book is an absolute treasure trove for anyone who has read "Fearful Symmetry" and the "The Great Code". As Frye promises, "Spiritus Mundi" recapitulates the major theses of Frye's career adding new insight and fresh arguments in their defense. It is by no means the first book to read by Frye but it does provide a great refresher course for anyone who read Frye's major books at some point in the distant past.
Frye agrees with the nineteenth century ethnographers such as George Frazier who argued that societies need mythologies for collective emotional comfort. More importantly in Frye's view, the mythologies provide direction for the ongoing literary and artistic output. For the Anglo-Saxon peoples, the mythology comes from the Bible because as protestants they read the Bible intensively.
Because Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible until Vatican II in the 1960's, Catholic literature remained mired in Hellenism at that time and in fact to the present date.
The works of John Milton (e.g. Samson Agonistes, Paradise Lost) and William Blake (e.g. Songs of Innocence and Experience) are the ones which most strongly support Frye's thesis although there are others. T.S. Eliot (The Wasteland) stands out as a prominent 20th Century Christian writer. In our current generation it is Frye's former pupil Margaret Atwood is most effectively using a Biblical mythological structure.
Although his proof points are not numerous, Frye still does a superb job of demonstrating that the Bible constitutes the mythological framework for our literature. What concerns me is that Frye does not say anywhere that it is also the medium of divine revelation.
Frye agrees with the nineteenth century ethnographers such as George Frazier who argued that societies need mythologies for collective emotional comfort. More importantly in Frye's view, the mythologies provide direction for the ongoing literary and artistic output. For the Anglo-Saxon peoples, the mythology comes from the Bible because as protestants they read the Bible intensively.
Because Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible until Vatican II in the 1960's, Catholic literature remained mired in Hellenism at that time and in fact to the present date.
The works of John Milton (e.g. Samson Agonistes, Paradise Lost) and William Blake (e.g. Songs of Innocence and Experience) are the ones which most strongly support Frye's thesis although there are others. T.S. Eliot (The Wasteland) stands out as a prominent 20th Century Christian writer. In our current generation it is Frye's former pupil Margaret Atwood is most effectively using a Biblical mythological structure.
Although his proof points are not numerous, Frye still does a superb job of demonstrating that the Bible constitutes the mythological framework for our literature. What concerns me is that Frye does not say anywhere that it is also the medium of divine revelation.
January 7, 2021
I love Frye but sometimes (thankfully not often) he gets too far up his own butt. This is a book divided into three sections and the first two are perfectly lovely and vintage Frye, but the third, which discusses several poets (namely Milton, Blake, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens) central to Frye's critical imagination, detracts from the achievements of the rest. My issue with these essays is that they amount to extended archetype spotting. It's like, say, a lecture by a beloved professor which opens with that famous stratagem, the etymology (something like this "As we begin this class on photography, let us keep in mind that the word 'photography' is Greek for 'writing with light'...). This stratagem of the etymology is one that I often find very intriguing and suggestive; but we hope the professor knows he has to leave it behind, expand outward into the rest of his subject. In the archetype-spotting essays, it's as though Frye never gets started on the "expanding" part: he just keeps piling etymology on top of etymology, archetype and analogy on top of archetype and analogy. This is something -- the perception of a pattern across the entire field of his literary experience -- that he seems to immensely enjoy doing but I, for one, find it pretty dull; his excitement doesn't translate to the reader.
As a result, the last section (specifically the Yeats essay) contains the most stupefying sentence I've ever found in Frye, possibly the most stupefying sentence in the entire field of *my* literary experience, and it's a jangled tune that goes a little something like this:
"The details are too complicated to go into here, but a man of Phase 23 is actually made up of a Will of Phase 23, a Mask of Phase 9, a Creative Mind of Phase 7, and a Body of Fate of Phase 21."
In the parlance of our time, "lolwut?" (Though, to be fair, some of this appears to be Yeats's fault.)
Having thusly satirized, however, I must reiterate that the first two sections are pretty great, though, entirely worth reading, in my opinion.
As a result, the last section (specifically the Yeats essay) contains the most stupefying sentence I've ever found in Frye, possibly the most stupefying sentence in the entire field of *my* literary experience, and it's a jangled tune that goes a little something like this:
"The details are too complicated to go into here, but a man of Phase 23 is actually made up of a Will of Phase 23, a Mask of Phase 9, a Creative Mind of Phase 7, and a Body of Fate of Phase 21."
In the parlance of our time, "lolwut?" (Though, to be fair, some of this appears to be Yeats's fault.)
Having thusly satirized, however, I must reiterate that the first two sections are pretty great, though, entirely worth reading, in my opinion.
February 17, 2024
Consisting of three discrete sections, "Contexts of Literature," "The Mythological Universe," and "Four Poets," Northrop Frye's "Spiritus Mundi: Essays on Literature, Myth, and Society" is a comprehensive foray into the mind of Northrup Frye, eminent Canadian literary critic and purveyor of archetypal criticism. Indeed, a perusal of these pieces, twelve of them in all, will gain the reader perspircacious insight into a whole realm of literature and associated fields, that expand the parameters of understanding in this fervid and passion-filled field. Particularly revealing, at least to this reader's eyes, is the middle 'ground' of the book, entitled "The Mythological Universe," which deals with the mythology of Blake ("Expanding Eyes"), the role of "Charms and Riddles" (the magical, incantatory aspect of language); "Romance as Masque," which deals with the distinction between "Old" and "New" comedy; and "Spengler Revisited," which provides insight into Spengler, that avatar of German nationalism, whose system so clearly delineates worthwhile insights into the world of culture's influence on history. Additionally, the last third of the essays ("Four Poets") provides exact instruction concerning Blake's mythology, which imaginatively provides clarity into our post-Newtonian world; elucidation into Milton's "Samson Agonistes," as both exemplar of a Solar God and Biblical exegesis; and both Yeats' and Stevens' 'system's' of poetry, which, like Spengler's system, provides sustenance to the visionary world of the artists' poems. To add on, Frye's prose, supple and easy to understand, provides a vehicle to better to change our view of the world, and art's place in the world. All in all, this book is an entertaining read, erudite and intellectual, that does not equate profundity with obscurity, for the pieces are accessible to even the general. This is a good book!
November 4, 2022
Every single one of these is a gem. I've always thought (I think I imbibed this from Harold Bloom) that Wallace Stevens exemplified the thesis that a "poet is not the best critic of his or her work"... but the last essay in Spiritus Mundi was so sophisticated that it really made me excited for the first time about reading Necessary Angel. The first, biographical chapters made me pretty bittersweet weepy sad about the Academy that (maybe ((in Canada?))) was but is no more. In the middle section, what really stood out: maybe all the Shakespearians already know this, but the essay on Romance as Masque = just wonderfully paradigm-altering for me; I liked reading Frye on Splenger--which seems sort of eclectic from today's perspective; the last four chapters are Milton, Blake (his illustrations of the book of Job), Yeats (A Vision, sort of the opposite, thematically of the Stevens celebration), and Stevens. I always think of "Fearful Symmetry" as the best book to give to people who don't get the importance of literary criticism; "Anatomy of Criticism" is too encyclopedically sublime to discuss here; the two bible books didn't much strike me but maybe I'll return to them with different eyes now. Spiritus Mundi, unwaveringly brilliant, funny, inspiring. By "unwavering," I mean every page.
April 29, 2025
3/5 Stars (%63/100)
Northrop Frye’s Spiritus Mundi: Essays on Literature, Myth, and Society offers a series of intellectually engaging reflections on the role of myth and archetype in shaping literary traditions and cultural consciousness. Drawing from a wide array of texts and disciplines, Frye explores how literature functions as a symbolic structure that both reflects and organizes human experience. While the essays are rich in insight, the academic density and abstract language can occasionally obscure their relevance, making the collection more stimulating in concept than in execution for some readers.
Northrop Frye’s Spiritus Mundi: Essays on Literature, Myth, and Society offers a series of intellectually engaging reflections on the role of myth and archetype in shaping literary traditions and cultural consciousness. Drawing from a wide array of texts and disciplines, Frye explores how literature functions as a symbolic structure that both reflects and organizes human experience. While the essays are rich in insight, the academic density and abstract language can occasionally obscure their relevance, making the collection more stimulating in concept than in execution for some readers.
April 16, 2010
I LOVE Frye! He is a hoot. Joey recommended him an age ago, and as usual I’m late on the bandwagon, but I definitely enjoy his ideas and his writing style. I’m going to read more literary criticism books by him as soon as I can get my hands on them.
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May 3, 2017I didn't enjoy reading this.
But after years of describing my alma mater by reference to Frye, despite having never read him, I figured it was time. The essays would be interesting to revisit when doing exhaustive studies of any of the subjects mentioned, but it was hella boring as a leisurely read. I also could have done without any of the moralizing or moments where he dragged the old white ass of his personality across the page. Can't say this collection did good things for my memories of Victoria College, but, again, I see its value in the appropriate context.
But after years of describing my alma mater by reference to Frye, despite having never read him, I figured it was time. The essays would be interesting to revisit when doing exhaustive studies of any of the subjects mentioned, but it was hella boring as a leisurely read. I also could have done without any of the moralizing or moments where he dragged the old white ass of his personality across the page. Can't say this collection did good things for my memories of Victoria College, but, again, I see its value in the appropriate context.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews