The Great Code: The Bible and LiteratureConsidered by many to be Northrop Frye's magnum opus, The Great Code (1982) reflects a lifetime of thinking about the patterns and meanings of the Bible. In this new edition of The Great Code, Alvin A. Lee presents a corrected and fully annotated version of Frye's text, as well as a comprehensive introduction to help contextualize this important work and guide readers through its allusive passages. Lee's introduction provides a synoptic account of the role of the Bible in Frye's intellectual and spiritual odyssey, as well as a description of how The Great Code as a book came into existence, and an introductory critique of the shape and meaning of the book's argument. The Great Code is culturally allusive to a high degree. It takes much of its inspiration from the Bible itself, including a profusion of biblical passages, but also from the author's extensive reading of a host of other texts from ancient times until the late twentieth century. Lee's extensive annotation illustrates, beyond question, that Frye's knowledge of the Bible and how it has worked in Western culture was at once profound and visionary. This new edition not only re-presents Frye's text in a clear, correct, and fully annotated form, it goes a long way in helping us understand the widespread scholarly and popular reception that met this extraordinary and in some ways revolutionary book and how it can still be richly rewarding for readers. |
From inside the book
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... cultural inher- itance there must be a common psychological inheritance , otherwise forms of culture and imagination ... culture . One of the practical functions of criticism , by which I mean the conscious organ- izing of a cultural ...
... culture , but grew up as an integral part of that culture . A mythology rooted in a specific society transmits a heritage of shared allusion and verbal experience in time , and so mythology helps to create a cultural history . As a ...
... culture that surrounds them and separates them from nature . There are no noble savages , in the sense of purely natural men for whom this integument of culture has disappeared . What we live in , says Wallace Stevens , is de- scription ...
Contents
Contents | vii |
Abbreviations | xiii |
Editors Introduction | 10 |
Copyright | |
11 other sections not shown