Albert C. Hamilton

10 TRIBUTE TO H. NORTIiROP FRYE sounds of words. And of silences too. His shyness made silence comfortable , and I don't just mean for those privileged to spend time in his company. For ultimately, his great genius as a theorist was that he did not do all the talking. He left room for others, and for literature. He read texts from an extraordinarily wide range of cultures, in a spirit of generosity and understanding. He knew that washing a guest's feet was as sacred as having a meal with the gods. And, he would probably have added with a twinkle, much more interesting. He showed how literature gives meaning and value to the experiences of life, and how different lives create different literatures. He provided both inspiration and organization for the establishment of the Centre for Comparative Literature here at the University of Toronto, remaining one of its strongest advocates; while the Centre in its turn celebrated his contributions with a Chair in his honour, bringing to the university scholars representing the challenging range ofhis interests. William Wordsworth once said that he was fostered alike by beauty and by fear; and when Northrop Frye titled his first book Fearful Symmetry, he confirmed his abiding belief in the paradox of wonder, without which we understand neither life, nor death, nor literature. For all of its complexity, his theory was in the final analysis a theory of wonder. A way of seeing, as if for the first time. His work, like its author, had grace and humour and a rare economy. And his voice, in the words of Wallace Stevens (a poet he returned to throughout his life) was A chorister whose c preceded the choir. It was part of the colossal sun, Surrounded by its choral rings, Still far away. It was like A new knowledge of reality. ALBERTC. HAMILTON We gather here to mark the loss of Northrop Frye as a private and public person: as a loyal friend, valued.colleague, staunch Canadian, inspiring lecturer, and eloquent spokesman on many cultural issues of our time.For over fifty years he remained a powerfuland wonderful pre,ence among us. On this occasion, it is fitting to recall what he said in 1978: 'As our personal future narrows, we become more aware of another dimension of time entirely, and may even catch glimpses of the powers and forces of a far greater creative design.' Here we recognize that in his literary criticism he seeks to persuade us to share his glimpses of these 'powers and forces' as TRIBUTE TO H. NORTHROP FRYE 11 they are revealed in literature. He lived his real life, then, as a literary critic, and one may say of him, as Keats said of Shakespeare, that he 'led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it: Even while we mark the loss of his presence among us, then, we may rejoice in his continuing presence in the future through his twenty-four books, which have established him as a major literary critic of the twentieth century, the only critic with a world-wide reputation, and the only critic who addresses a wide reading public. No one matches his imaginative, critical insight into the nature and function of works of literature, and of literature as a whole, which allowed him to show how the works ofwriters from Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton to Blake and Shelley, to Joyce and Stevens, not only relate to their society and to culture as a whole but also address central and enduring human concerns, desires, and fears. As a critic he is uniquely distinguished by his effort to communicate to his readers his vision of all literary works seen together as an order of words, or a secular scripture, within the divine scripture. In 1976, he remarked: 'The feeling that death is inevitable comes to us from ordinary experience; the feeling that new life is inevitable comes to us from myth and fable: and adds: 'The latter is therefore both more true and more important.' I think we can see now what he meant. Northrop Frye lives with us, and will continue to live with future generations, in his...