Axis Mundi-the Foundation Stone Of Frye's Literature Theory

Northrop Frye(1912——1991) is one of the most famous critics in Canada and English-speaking countries of 20th. Since the 1980s, along with the attention of the theory of Archetypal criticism, Frye as the representation of the Archetypal criticism caught the sight of the scholars, and especially our study of Frye is close to the overseas and we have attained great achievements in recent years. But it is not enough to discuss Frye who is abundant in his works in such a long time merely in a narrow sight of only one school of thought. For the purpose above, I tried to study his theory and critic by researching his religion background and scholar experience.We started at the English poet William Blake, we will go through the main thought of the"Axis Mundi", which Frye built his theory on it. The Axis Mundi is not only the concept structure but also the culture background of Frye's literature critics of his theory. In the later scholar experience, Frye turned to research Bible, which is the source of the Axis Mundi and the whole western literature. Besides, the practice of his critic of western literature made a constitution of history of literature development by the structure of Axis Mundi, topocosm and concrete writers and texts.The purpose of this paper is to research Frye's theory and practice of literature critic. At this sense, we can know Frye's importance between modern and postmodern, he was actually beyond that periods.