A Great Teacher Remembered at 100
by Evander Lomke on
Frye as I remember him
This blog has little directly to do with mental health, and everything to do with pedagogy and its impact on later life. It is composed in memoriam.
In 1975 to 1976, while a graduate student at the University of Toronto, I was fortunate to attend lectures, based on sections of Anatomy of Criticism, by Herman Northrop Frye.
Being on the English system, the lectures ran from early fall to late spring the following year. I well remember the solemnity of the large, packed room. Two older (and slightly pretentious) fellow-grad students typically sat in front of me. Occasionally they would nod to one another or raise an eyebrow.
I knew that I was nowhere up to the level of the lecturer. But I learned his lessons, and more about the construction of literature, as a portal of human nature, than I did from any number of classes.
Northrop Frye taught from a singular vision. He taught from his soul.
Thank you, Professor, for your time.
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