Herman Northrop Frye is my "hero."

I've been asked multiple times in my life, "If you could bring back one person to have dinner with, who would it be?" And I've never had a real answer: Ghandi, MLK Jr, Roosevelt, etc. These people would be interesting of course, but I only regurgitated their names because they are important historical figures and when used as the answer, there's never much further question as to why.

I now have a real answer - I would eat dinner and drink wine, with Northrop Frye. I could listen to the man talk about the history of the world as he sees it and never feel bored. Every second would be a learning experience, and not the textbook learning experience, but filled with sentences dripping with humor, skepticism, wisdom, and knowledge that one can't help but become engrossed by. He causes you to think of things you've never realized, and realize the importance of things you failed to acknowledge.

Here are a couple examples of how Frye creates deeper meaning from surface text and dares you to look into meaning you never thought your mind could grasp. From his book The Great Code.

CHAPTER 1, Language 1

- Analogical language came to be thought of as sacramental language, a verbal response to God's own verbal revelation.
- Here Frye shows how humans tend to rationalize events, viewing them as real, unable to comprehend the greater picture that the language was trying to paint. Language began in the age of the divine as metaphorical, brought to the people through poetic material. As time has progressed language has digressed to become metonymical and finally demotic, which is where it sits today. Frye experiments with the idea that the Bible, written in metaphor, has become misinterpreted by humans trying to literally justify their value and purpose in this life.

- Science assumes two levels of sense perception: a particular accidental level that is largely illusion, and an ideal level that is our real source of knowledge. The notion that the earth is flat, fixed, and at the center of the universe is an illusion of accident. Educated people had known for centuries before Columbus that the earth must be a sphere, but the fact did not become "demotic," or penetrate popular consciousness, until the circumnavigations began, which suggested a more comprehensive form of sense perception.
- This indirectly suggests the humans' need to have tangible evidence before acknowledging an outlandish theory. Thus, it is difficult for me to understand the ability for people to so widely acknowledge the Bible as truth. There are no given authors, little allusion to time period, and bare-bone statements about the interaction between God and "his people." Here's the real kicker, God is the only character not physically described and no person shall lay eyes upon him. So, this leaves me to question how the Bible went from an Encyclopedia style documentation/recount of the time period's oral stories, too a holy book followed by the majority of Western civilization literally and often without question.


These are just two of the concepts brought forth in the first chapter and the list goes on. He not only creates an outstanding argument for his take on the topic, but acknowledges the counterpoint and works it into his view.

HERE'S A QUESTION FOR YOU THOUGH...
How does Frye get away with not citing his sources from which he draws information? Could it be that he knows everything?

... He is undeniably a genius, so I guess it's possible...