ABSTRACT
In the Preface to the reprint of Fearful Symmetry in 1969, Frye notes that the fifth and final complete rewriting of the book ‘consisted largely of cutting out of it a mass of critical principles and observations, some of which found their way into my next long book, Anatomy of Criticism’ From the critical observations that Frye left in his study of Blake, this is no idle boast. In discussing Anatomy I want to concentrate most on the ‘Polemical Introduction’, partly because it sets out Frye’s theory most clearly, partly because this book is much discussed and partly because I have looked at the ‘Tentative Conclusion’ in my fifth chapter, which examines Frye and history. Another genesis of Anatomy is that, as Frye tells us, he wanted to apply the principles of literary symbolism and biblical typology to a poet who took these principles from contemporary theory, in this case Edmund Spenser, as opposed to someone who worked them out, like Blake (1957:vii). Anatomy of Criticism is a book that changed the debate in critical theory irrevocably: it will not fade like unwanted age in the dust and can never remain long in the shadows.
