All writers are conventional, because all writers have the … - Northrop Frye

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All writers are conventional, because all writers have the same problem of transferring their language from direct speech to the imagination. For the serious mediocre writer convention makes him sound like a lot of other people; for the popular writer it gives him a formula he can exploit; for the serious good writer it releases his experiences or emotions from himself and incorporates them into literature, where they belong.

Northrop Frye

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About Northrop Frye

Herman Northrop Frye (14 July 1912 – 23 January 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.

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Umberto Eco Jorge Luis Borges George Steiner Novalis Aldous Huxley

Additional quotes by Northrop Frye

Those who are concerned with the arts are often asked questions, not always sympathetic ones, about the use or value of what they are doing. It is probably impossible to answer such questions directly, or at any rate to answer the people who ask them.

I must have God on my own terms, because God on somebody else’s terms is an idol. (p. 61)

The operations of the human mind are also controlled by words of power, formulas that become a focus of mental activity.

All writers are conventional, because all writers have the same problem of transferring their language from direct speech to the imagination. For the… - Northrop Frye

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