The Critical Path and Other Writings on Critical Theory, 1963–1975.

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.

The Critical Path (1971) may well be Northrop Frye’s most important book after Fearful Symmetry, Anatomy of Criticism, and The Great Code. In it he departed from what is sometimes regarded as a useless “Palace of Art” to consider sociological and political matters in what is just as quaintly regarded as “the real world.” Frye himself, however, would have rejected the notion that he was changing direction since he insisted that the “total subject for the critic” includes “large parts of religion, philosophy, political theory, and the social sciences.”

This is therefore an important book, though one cannot help recognizing an irony in the second part of the title: “and Other Writings on Critical Theory.” Frye was, of course, a critical theorist, but as a result of several decades that produced impenetrable books written in barbarous English, “theory” is now at so low an ebb that the label no longer constitutes a recommendation. But Frye, who almost invariably writes clearly and perceptively, and often wittily, has much to say of interest on his subject from a detached but by no means unfeeling perspective.

The “other writings” form something of a grab bag. They are all worth reading, but are generally elaborations of what he has said elsewhere. I cannot resist observing, however, that “On Value Judgments” (always a “King Charles’s head” for Frye) will fail to impress anyone not yet wholly converted to Frye’s approach. He is fond of saying, “Go for the structure, not for the content,” but some say, “Go for the words on the page, which are the basis for all we have.” Even a great critic can have his blind spots.

The standard of editing is, as usual, excellent.