1960 Fredericton Encaenia
Frye, Herman Northrop
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
Image
Image Caption
L to R: Colin B. Mackay, Herman Northrop Frye, C.L. Mahan
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Source: UA PC-4 no.8k
Citation:
ENCAENIA, MAY, 1960
HERMAN NORTHROP FRYE
to be Doctor of Letters
Frye the lecturer, author, and broadcaster; Frye of the encyclopaedic mind, embracing music, art, architecture, politics, philosophy, and religion; Frye the archangel of Criticism, was schooled in Moncton. And then New Brunswick lost him for ever to Ontario. There he became immured, with the fiery dedication that he brings to all his goals, in Victoria College at the University of Toronto. From Victoria he graduated, heading, as he had always headed, the Honours list in Philosophy and English. There followed an interval during which, after ordination in the United Church, he carried off first class honours at Oxford. To Victoria he then returned, to be lecturer in English and, in steady succession, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, full Professor, Chairman of the Department, and finally, in 1959, Principal. An Eminent Victorian, this! But whereas his ebullient spirit, uncompromising frankness, and a certain earthy humour shatter that image of provincialism and hypocrisy, the function of Criticism yokes him among the Victorians with Matthew Arnold.
He is the leading authority on William Blake, and his first major publication, Fearful Symmetry, gave him an international reputation. This has been confirmed and strengthened by the essays, articles, reviews, and books, that pour from his teeming and trenchant pen.
"Criticism", he postulates, "is to art what history is to action and philosophy to wisdom."
The complement of all creative work, she might in his revolutionary filing system be classified as both Sister and Midwife -- and woe to fools who disagree!
Woe, indeed! since the destiny of this Encaenia has decreed for the Orator's next victims a pair calculated to test the hypothesis -- a creator and a critic. Scrutinized by this 'Tyger burning bright', the task of presenting an artist and an art appraiser in the 'Fearful Symmetry' demanded by Northrop Frye would scare a humble Classic, had not that Classic arrived by independent thinking at the master's own conclusions. For flattering though such consensus may be, it is, when in Frye's terrifying company, far, far more comfortable to carp among the Fryers than to crisp among the Fryed.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
HERMAN NORTHROP FRYE
to be Doctor of Letters
Frye the lecturer, author, and broadcaster; Frye of the encyclopaedic mind, embracing music, art, architecture, politics, philosophy, and religion; Frye the archangel of Criticism, was schooled in Moncton. And then New Brunswick lost him for ever to Ontario. There he became immured, with the fiery dedication that he brings to all his goals, in Victoria College at the University of Toronto. From Victoria he graduated, heading, as he had always headed, the Honours list in Philosophy and English. There followed an interval during which, after ordination in the United Church, he carried off first class honours at Oxford. To Victoria he then returned, to be lecturer in English and, in steady succession, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, full Professor, Chairman of the Department, and finally, in 1959, Principal. An Eminent Victorian, this! But whereas his ebullient spirit, uncompromising frankness, and a certain earthy humour shatter that image of provincialism and hypocrisy, the function of Criticism yokes him among the Victorians with Matthew Arnold.
He is the leading authority on William Blake, and his first major publication, Fearful Symmetry, gave him an international reputation. This has been confirmed and strengthened by the essays, articles, reviews, and books, that pour from his teeming and trenchant pen.
"Criticism", he postulates, "is to art what history is to action and philosophy to wisdom."
The complement of all creative work, she might in his revolutionary filing system be classified as both Sister and Midwife -- and woe to fools who disagree!
Woe, indeed! since the destiny of this Encaenia has decreed for the Orator's next victims a pair calculated to test the hypothesis -- a creator and a critic. Scrutinized by this 'Tyger burning bright', the task of presenting an artist and an art appraiser in the 'Fearful Symmetry' demanded by Northrop Frye would scare a humble Classic, had not that Classic arrived by independent thinking at the master's own conclusions. For flattering though such consensus may be, it is, when in Frye's terrifying company, far, far more comfortable to carp among the Fryers than to crisp among the Fryed.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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