Nature is not natural and can never be naturalized — Graham Harman

Friday, January 14, 2011

Northrop Frye reads Buddhism

It's not well known that the towering New Critic Northrop Frye studied Buddhist texts, quite seriously. Before him Empson was fascinated by Buddha faces and was writing a book manuscript about them (it may have shown up, I hear, but I'm not totally sure). Frye's journals show ample evidence of a thoughtful and quite deep encounter with Buddhism. He wonders for instance whether Protestantism and Zen share some similar undercurrents. (Remember he's a quasi-Jungian who thinks in terms of collective myths.)

2 comments:

Catherine said...

What an excellently placed caveat.

I find these posts on Buddhism very interesting.

daz hastings said...

hyptheses 1: in principle OOO makes "non-attachment" (as a practice) easier.

I've already made enourmous in-roads on this subject. In just two months of absorbing OOO, I can see and feel how non-attachment will be newly conceived.