The autobiographical reflections that introduce this collection begin with five units of material, drawn from Frye’s holograph notebooks and typed notes, that we have called “Autobiographical Notes.” The earliest, written between 1942 and 1944, is similar in form to Frye’s other notebooks in that he lets his mind play freely with a host of diverse subjects. It differs insofar as Frye has no particular critical project in mind, though the novel he had begun working on during these years does get brief mention here and there (pars. 23, 24, 31, 52). The sundry topics are as wide ranging as in...

[1] Notes on houses: lots of good sections are 50 x 150, and cost about a thousand, taxes slightly over a hundred a year—nearly two hundred in city limits, where you get sewage instead of a septic tank. The box houses are cheapest, as corners cost money & extensions about $200 a foot; and original ideas have to encounter the ignorance & inertia of Toronto tradesmen. The story-and-a-half principle seems good for a small house—it involves usually a dormer window & some slope upstairs. The garage doesn’t need to be lined; a space over it, if there is...

“At the moment of death,” said the ghost, “I was aware of two things only. I hated you, and I loved Margaret. I expect it was that concentration on two very simple emotions that brought me back. There was a priest bending over me with the eyes of a mystic, eyes that unnerved me at first, but then seemed to give me courage. They seemed to say, ‘I have been there too, and come back—so can you.’ After that I knew nothing until I appeared here.”

“Then I take it,” said the enemy, “that you learned that portentous style...

[1] I have a great theoretical respect for Mendelssohn. He was the only romantic who did anything serious with Bach’s great forms of oratorio and fugue, and the only one who contributed much to Bach’s instrument, the organ. But while I have a great theoretical respect for Mendelssohn I can’t stand any of his damned music, which is rather hard on my tendency to transcendentalize art-forms. He may be from that point of view the only connecting link between Bach and César Franck, but that doesn’t give him what they’ve got.

[2] I’ve been trying to read him. The Fantasy,...

[1] Organized violence usually rationalized by some kind of ideology. This may be terrorist, revolutionary, or repressive (“law and order”). American violence often terrorist and unrationalized;

Canadian violence mainly repressive,

Backlash of self-righteousness likely.

[2] Analogy of sexuality:

Older children and adolescents can handle the reflexes of sex, but not the emotional problems.

As long as sexual intercourse involved marriage and parenthood, it was reasonable to postpone sexual experience. Cf. the word “adultery.”

Now that these are separated, it may not do much harm for kids to sleep around: maybe it should be one of the rewards of immaturity, as...

[1] The reversal of reality in comedy in Shakespeare is normally the reversing of objective reality often symbolized as a law, which is frustrating and frequently absurd, into created reality of the kind that “art” (magic, but also drama and music) represents. The Tempest and, in a different way, WT [The Winter’s Tale] are the great examples. The savage and bitter comedy of TC [Troilus and Cressida] is something else.

[2] I’d say it was using cosmological principles as a hypocritical front to gain immediate ends. Ulysses says everything depends on the chain of being keeping its order and hierarchy....

I have been interested for some time now in writing a book on the Bible within the orbit of literary criticism. As a literary critic, I have been revolving around the Bible all my life. When I started out as a junior instructor teaching Milton and writing a book about Blake, both of whom are unusually Biblical even by the standards of English literature, I complained to the chairman of my department about my difficulties of communicating with my students aboutParadise Lost.He said the only solution to that was to offer a course in the English Bible, because...

[1] In opening show growth of self-consciousness in general thesis of romanticism essay,¹ starting with Spenglerian interpretation. Deal with Kant and progress of German philosophy of romanticism toward selfconsciousness of Schopenhauer, connect this with [Hans] Vaihinger and work in Marx’ growth of political self-consciousness. Develop this toward climax in Bergson and concretion in Spengler. Should be fairly easy to do, taking F. H. Bradley, the evolutionary philosophy, later developments in German thought and the romantic-diabolic-sadist inverted theology in the arts on the way. Develop out, like Kant, of Rousseau and Hume: show gradual shift to historical approach toward ethics in...