Northrop Frye was born on 14 July 1912, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and raised in Moncton, New Brunswick.
He entered Victoria College in the University of Toronto in 1929, graduating in Honours Philosophy and English in 1933; he then completed the theological course at Emmanuel College, and was ordained in the United Church of Canada in 1936. He attended Merton College, Oxford, receiving his Oxford M.A. in 1940. In 1939, he joined the Department of English at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, and remained on the teaching faculty there for the rest of his life, eventually holding the offices of English Department Chair, Principal of Victoria College, and Chancellor. He was invited to deliver visiting lectures in many universities around the world including the USA (Princeton in 1954 and Harvard in 1975) Italy and Australia.
Frye rose to international prominence as a result of his first book, Fearful Symmetry, published in 1947. Until then, the prophetic poetry of William Blake had been poorly understood, even considered by some to be delusional ramblings. Frye found in it a system of metaphor derived from Paradise Lost and the Bible. His study of Blake's poetry was a major contribution. Moreover, Frye outlined an innovative manner of studying literature based on identifiable patterns of imagery and narrative structures, that was to deeply influence the study of literature in general.
His lasting reputation rests principally on the theory of literary criticism that he developed in Anatomy of Criticism (1957), one of the most important works of literary theory published in the twentieth century. American critic Harold Bloom commented at the time of its publication that Anatomy established Frye as "the foremost living student of Western literature." Fundamental to this new poetics that Frye elaborated was a deep understanding of how biblical and classical myths and archetypes inform western literature.
His honours were many. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1951, receiving the Society's Lorne Pierce medal in 1958 and its Pierre Chauveau medal in 1970. In 1967 the University of Toronto named him University Professor; in the same year he received the Canada Council medal. In 1971 he was awarded the Canada Council Molson Prize, and in 1978 he received the Royal Bank Award. In 1987 he was given the Governor General's Literary Award and the Toronto Arts Lifetime Achievement Award. He was an Honorary Fellow or Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1969), Merton College, Oxford (1974), the British Academy (1975), the American Philosophical Society (1976), and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1981). He held thirty-eight honorary doctorates from universities around the world.