Northrop Frye on Milton and Blake

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

With one exception, this volume of Northrop Frye’s Collected Works
contains all his writings on John Milton and William Blake, even
including The Return of Eden: Five Essays on Milton’s Epics. The one
exception is his lengthy study of Blake, Fearful Symmetry, which has
recently appeared, with additional annotations, as volume 14 of this
series.

Frye is clearly less comfortable with Milton than with Blake. His
treatment of Milton emphasizes the scholarly and the interpretative.
There is little of the humour and wit that we find elsewhere in Frye’s
writing. He seems on the academic defensive, and, with the exception of
a brief (and, I think, misguided) dismissive insult, totally ignores the
Milton controversy raging in literary circles in the mid-20th century.
The most useful Milton pieces seem to me to be his introduction to
“Paradise Lost” and Selected Poetry and Prose, and the excellent
“Literature in Context: Milton’s Lycidas,” both of which are
directed to the keen reader rather than the advanced scholar.

But with Blake he is clearly more confident and at ease. Indeed,
readers who, like me, find Fearful Symmetry at least as difficult as
Blake himself, will welcome most of the writings on Blake as
refreshingly stimulating and accessible. He covers all aspects of
Blakean literary criticism, from biographical essays to detailed
readings of crucial poems (notably the introductory poem to Songs of
Innocence), discussions of the prophetic books, some fascinating
examinations of the relation between his poetry and designs, and even a
comprehensive account of Blake bibliography up to the time of writing
(1957), which manages to be critically shrewd and highly readable as
well as scholarly.

Frye writes here as an enthusiastic champion, and his enthusiasm
becomes infectious. There is, inevitably, a good deal of repetition
between one article or lecture and another, but this means that
individual readers can always find one congenial to their particular
interests. Finally, Angela Esterhammer continues the tradition of the
series in providing succinct, inconspicuous, but useful annotations, and
in presenting the material in a way that will suit both the bemused
beginner and the seasoned researcher.