Northrup Frye (July 14, 1912 - January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.
For an overview of his career, go to:
The Frye Festival is Canada's only bilingual international literary festival and the largest literary event in Atlantic Canada.
Last Friday evening my husband and I attended a reception for U of Toronto graduates followed by a panel discussion during the Frye Festival of the role of the literary critic in contemporary culture. The discussion was titled "Culture and the Critic: How the age of media affects the role of the critic today."
Participants were John Doyle, writer for the Globe and Mail, author Terry Fallis, CBC host, producer and author Nora Young, along with novelist and television journalist David Gilmour. The discussion was lively and entertaining as well as insightful.
The panel has recognized a shift in the way cultural criticism is delivered and received in the digital age. Critics may not be totally enthusiastic about a literary, musical or artistic production, but they attempt to express a reasoned opinion. They have plenty of feedback from their audiences via the internet from those who agree and those who disagree with them.
Some of the comments were as follows:
Should the critic be expected to act as a publicist? Generally, no.The critic's loyalty is to the readership of his/her publication. Will they benefit from or enjoy the offering under consideration? (John Doyle)
The danger in being a critic for too long is that one has an uncontested arena for his/her opinions and the critic can become lost in self-importance. (David Gilmour contributed these thoughts.)
Critics are often phrase-makers, where exaggeration sounds good in the text, but the comments may be hurtful to the author/ artist / creator.
The digital age has allowed for immediate dialog with a critic's readers. It is easier to stay in touch and write criticism where the audience is engaged in collaborative filtering. (I have paraphrased John Doyle's comments here.)
The critic's role is to curate, to inform and to influence, to teach us how to assess so that we may make informed choices. (Terry Fallis added this.)
The critic's role is to articulate what is good and what is important, rather than to negate and suppress.
Northrup Frye said this, although I have paraphrased it somewhat. David contributed this quotation.
John added that the digital age creates a broad band of criticism.
Nora Young described her reticence to read the reviews and the criticism of her recently published book The Virtual Self: How Our Lives are Altering the World Around Us.
I bought a copy of Nora's book and she kindly autographed it for me. We had a conversation about distance education and particularly the AIB Low Residency MFA program. I have been reading her book and it is very interesting how people become caught up in tracking the details of their lives on-line and playing with the data. Nora explores the implications of all of this data being deposited in cyberspace. There are ways we can utilize it to better our lives, or we can overlook the ways that other people can exploit it. I haven't finished it yet, but it is well worth a careful read!
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