Northrop Frye, 1912–1991
A Biographical Sketch

Early Life & Education

Herman Northrop Frye was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1912, of Canadian parents. He received his primary and secondary education in Moncton, New Brunswick, followed by a business training course. In 1929, he entered Victoria College in the University of Toronto and graduated in 1933 in the Honours course in Philosophy and English, standing first in first class honours each year. After graduation, he completed the theological course in Emmanuel College and was ordained in the United Church of Canada in 1936.

Northrop Frye playing piano, Merton College, University of Oxford, 1936.

Realizing that his vocation lay in university teaching, he went to Merton College, Oxford, and received the Oxford M.A. in 1940, after graduating with first class honours in the English School. He joined the Department of English in Victoria College as a Lecturer in 1939, and became Assistant Professor in 1942, Associate Professor in 1946, Professor in 1947, Chairman of the Department of English (Victoria College) in 1952, and Principal of Victoria College in 1959. On January 1, 1967, he retired from the Principalship and became University Professor in the University of Toronto, remaining also a Professor of English at Victoria. He was Chancellor of Victoria University from 1978 until his death in 1991.

Publications, 1947–1969

Publications, 1970–1989

Publications, 1990–2016

Many of Frye’s publications were reprinted and released as revised and subsequent editions. Most recently, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays was re-released as part of the paperback series Princeton Classics, representing “some of the most important and influential books ever published by Princeton University Press—works by leading scholars and writers that have made a lasting impact on intellectual life around the world,” according to the publisher.

Frye also edited fifteen books, contributed essays and chapters to over sixty others and published over one hundred articles and reviews. From 1950 to 1960 he wrote the annual critical and bibliographical survey of Canadian poetry for Letters in Canada, University of Toronto Quarterly.

Northrop Frye at the the dedication of the E.J. Pratt Room of Contemporary Poetry on 15 October, 1964 in Victoria University Library. Looking at the exhibit are President A.B.B. Moore, Viola Whitney Pratt, Claire Pratt, Florence Pratt, Principal Frye with the Librarian Margaret Ray.

Awards & Honours

Frye was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1951. In 1958 he received the Royal Society’s Lorne Pierce Medal; the Canada Council Medal in 1967, the Royal Society’s Pierre Chauveau Medal in 1970, the Molson Prize in 1971, and the Royal Bank Award in 1978 for distinguished contributions to Canadian literature. In 1987, he won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction for Northrop Frye on Shakespeare and was the recipient of the Toronto Arts Lifetime Achievement Award. He received the Mondello Prize in Italy in 1990 for his lifetime dedication to literature. He was selected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1969 and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1972.

In 1974, he was made an Honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and received a Civic Honour from the City of Toronto. He was made a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1975, a Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1976, and an Honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1981. Frye was a Trustee of the English Institute, of which he was Chairman in 1953, and a member of the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association of America from 1958 to 1961, after which he became Chairman of its Nominating Committee. He rejoined the Executive Council of the MLA in 1974 and became President in 1976.

Canada Council Medal (1967), Order of Canada (1972)), City of Toronto Merit (1974).

Public Service & Involvement in Professional Associations

From 1948 to 1952, Northrop Frye was the editor of the Canadian Forum. He was Chairman of the English Sub-Committee of the Governor General’s Literary Awards Committee from 1959 to 1962, and became Chairman of the whole Committee in 1962. From 1960 to 1963 he was a member of the Board of Governors of the Ontario Curriculum Institute, and of its Executive Committee. The scholar was a member of the National Council of Teachers of English Commission on Literature, and of the Scholarship Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies. He was an advisory member of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission from 1968 to 1977.

Teaching Career

While Northrop Frye spent his career teaching at Victoria College, he also lectured at over one hundred universities all over the world and taught full term or summer sessions at Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Indiana, Washington, British Columbia, Cornell, Berkeley and Oxford. He gave many special lectures for endowed lecture series and received honorary degrees from universities in Canada, the United States and in Europe. He was an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University from 1970 to 1975 and was Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University for the year 1974–1975.

Northrop Frye in academic regalia, E.J. Pratt Library, Chief Librarian’s office, 1990. Photograph by Brian Willer.

Frye’s Legacy: English Literature Curricula

Northrop Frye had a considerable influence on the planning of curricula in English and on the teaching of English in elementary and secondary schools throughout the United States and Canada. In particular, he was Supervisory Editor of a series of textbooks with the covering title of Literature: Uses of the Imagination published by Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc.

Works About Frye

Critical discussions and guides to his work continue to be published, beginning with Northrop Frye in Modern Criticism in 1966, and most recently, with the publication of Robert Denham’s The Reception of Northrop Frye in 2021. Collected Works of Northrop Frye completed publication in 2012, numbering thirty volumes with the release of the index to the titles in the series.

Explore

Northrop Frye fonds (Victoria University Library) is an extensive collection of archival materials and artifacts pertaining to the literary critic’s activities as a scholar, professor, and public intellectual. The collection also includes books from Frye’s personal library and records associated with his personal life.

The Bible and English Literature (University of Toronto Libraries) consist of video recordings of Frye’s lectures on the subject, delivered as part of a course held at Victoria College during the 1990–1991 academic year. Frye taught this course for many years. A transcript accompanies each video.

Northrop Frye, 1912–1991A Biographical Sketch