First in his class every year, for 58 years never really leaving

Northrop Frye's Victoria College

The literary critic behind Anatomy of Criticism entered Victoria College at 17 and never really left — a career spanning student, professor, department chair, principal and chancellor, almost entirely on one Toronto campus.

Literary critic Northrop Frye seated on a bench at the University of Toronto — Northrop Frye, University of Toronto — Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons licensed

Herman Northrop Frye was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec in 1912 and raised in Moncton, New Brunswick — but his entire academic life belonged to Toronto. He entered Victoria College at the University of Toronto in 1929 and graduated in 1933 with first-class honours in philosophy and English, placing first in his class every year.

A career built entirely at Victoria College

Frye joined Victoria College's English department as a lecturer in 1939 and rose steadily: assistant professor, associate professor, full professor in 1947, department chair in 1952, and Principal of Victoria College from 1959 to 1967. In 1967 he became a University Professor at U of T while remaining a Victoria College professor, and served as Chancellor of Victoria University from 1978 until his death.

Fearful Symmetry and Anatomy of Criticism

His landmark books — Fearful Symmetry (1947), a study of William Blake, and Anatomy of Criticism (1957), his sweeping theory of literary modes — were written during this decades-long Victoria College tenure, which also overlapped with teaching a young Margaret Atwood. Frye died in Toronto in 1991; Victoria University later named Northrop Frye Hall after him and unveiled a statue of him on the Victoria College grounds.

Sources

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