Recorded 4 May 1990
From “Beteljesedett idõ,” in Northrop FRYE: a biblia igézetében: esszé, prédikáció, interju (Budapest: Hermeneutikai KutatÓkzpont, 1995), 38–42; an interview with Tibor Fabiny, translated by János Kenyeres. In his introduction Fabiny explained that, after giving courses on Frye’s major works to students of English at the University of Szeged for roughly a decade, he received a research fellowship at the Frye Centre for a month in 1990. The lecture he refers to below is one he gave on his work in progress, a book on the relationship between Biblical typology and literary symbolism (published as The Lion and the Lamb, 1992). He taped an interview with Frye on 4 May, translated it into Hungarian, and published a shortened, edited version of it; unfortunately the original English is no longer available. Fabiny commented in his introduction that “before visiting Frye, several of his colleagues warned me that I should prepare for the interview with questions as he is not a person who talks a lot: he often gives brief and witty answers and if there is no question, a long silence would follow. It almost happened that way …”
FABINY: Professor Frye, your grand work on the Bible, The Great Code, is just one of your twenty or so books published so far. Is it perhaps the “code” to your life’s work as well?
FRYE: As a book, it’s of course one among the rest, but it’s true that it is concerned with a topic which I dealt with intensively throughout my life. This book was completed with great difficulty.
FABINY: If you were so much interested in the Bible earlier, why did you write it so late?
FRYE: I was held back because the generally accepted criteria of “expertise” did not quite fit me.
FABINY: In the introduction to the book you write that, in a sense, all your work revolves around the Bible [xiv/8]. Well, typology is not only the central theme, but also the structural principle of The Great Code. Is it an exaggeration to say that your writings on the Bible revolve around typology?
FRYE: Well, yes, I became interested in typology when I was working on Blake. Typology greatly assisted me in understanding Blake’s Prophecies.
FABINY: Can we say that it is the “central point” of your oeuvre?
FRYE: There is some truth in this …
FABINY: Do you agree with Goppelt’s statement that typology is a pneumatische Betrachtungsweise, that is, a spiritual approach?1
FRYE: Yes, Milton also said that in Paradise Lost, and for him, too, spiritual vision had the greatest authority.2
FABINY: Do you agree that there is a marked difference between allegory and typology, namely, that typology is a figure of speech closely connected to Biblical language, while allegory is the excessive “spiritualization” of the text?
FRYE: Yes, allegory is prone to move away from the topic.
FABINY: In your works you always talk about “verbal events” in connection with the Bible. What does this mean? Are there any events which are not verbal?
FRYE: Good question! Yes, there are no events in the Bible which are not verbal. Everything in the Bible comes to us through a verbal form, through words. Biblical events are interpreted events. We have nothing outside the verbal reality.
FABINY: In my lecture I used the phrase that the language of the Bible is the “language of fulfilment.” Do you agree with this statement?
FRYE: Yes, you have expressed some very interesting ideas about the context in which “fulfilment” appears in the language of the Bible. In my works on Shakespeare and elsewhere I wrote a lot about the fact that tragic time is causal time looking into the past, while comic time is directed towards the future and is centred around fulfilment. Comedy is about the filling up of time, its fullness. Think of the source of A Winter’s Tale, Robert Greene’s Pandosto, whose subtitle is “The Triumph of Time.” So the Biblical concept of the fullness of time is akin to the sense of time in comedy.
FABINY: There is perhaps another link between the Bible and Shakespeare, connected with typology in a similar way. It’s as if Shakespeare had also been affected by the Bible’s concept of history based on salvation history.
FRYE: Yes, Shakespeare shared the idea of Tudor historians, which was later called the “Tudor myth.” In this view, the Tudors were the instruments of divine providence since, as they believed, it was Henry Tudor who put an end to the devastating and bloody Wars of the Roses. It’s not by chance that in the histories we find so many allusions to the story of Cain, the first fratricide, in relation to the Wars of the Roses. At the same time, the Tudor dynasty, the centralized kingdom, is the emblem or type of spiritual freedom. The movement of history shows a lot of analogies to salvation history in Shakespeare as well.
FABINY: Can we say that the projection of salvation history to the world here below is a parody: the various ideological theories of progress eventually end up as parodies of salvation history? And if these parodies fail, as we see these days, doesn’t this invalidate the Biblical concept?
FRYE: Yes, they are certainly parodies. We see this in the Tudor period as well. Salvation history (Heilsgeschichte) is a valid concept in itself, and what happens in the world is that world history, Weltgeschichte, tries to imitate Heilsgeschichte.
FABINY: My next question concerns the inspiration of the Bible. You have written that you do not like this expression and would rather use the word “revelation.”3
FRYE: I do not like the word “inspiration” because it is constantly parroted by fundamentalists. They somehow imagine that the authors of the Bible were living tape recorders and automatically put down in writing what the Holy Spirit whispered into their ears. I have no objection to inspiration if it means the written expression of some sense of enlightenment or internal conviction. I have a problem with inspiration when it is taken as an automatic, infallible way of writing.
FABINY: So you don’t agree with the inerrantia, the objective infallibility, of the Bible, as it turns the Bible into an idol.
FRYE: Exactly!
FABINY: In my lecture yesterday, I mentioned that understanding and reading—to use a Biblical image—are like eating, the “swallowing” of the book: it’s sweet in the mouth but bitter in the stomach.
FRYE: This is a very important image. The understanding of the word proclaimed, its acquisition and assimilation, are like eating. It’s no accident that this has become closely connected to the eating of the word which has become flesh, to Communion.
FABINY: Oh, yes, I hadn’t thought of that! My next question relates to the relationship between the eye and the ear, which you have often written about [e.g., GC, 116–17/135–7]. In the Bible, the word of God reaches us through the ear—faith comes from hearing. The Hebrew tradition is verbal, whereas the Greek one is visual. In the Biblical tradition, the figurative representation of God is idolatry. You have extensively dealt with Blake, who wrote about the Bible, but thought in terms of visions. Moreover, it seems to me that you also think in a visual way. Your books are full of figures and diagrams …
FRYE: Blake was fully aware of the dangers of idolatry. He used his genius as a painter to talk against idolatry. The problem with the visual representation of God, with sculpture, is that it identifies God with natural or objective things outside us. The Hebrew tradition puts a great emphasis on the voice of the speaking God, which prompts action. At the same time, Blake provides a vision with his painting and poetry, just as Biblical prophecy addresses man through the ear. Both are against idols.
FABINY: Does this mean that Blake uses visuality to fight against the idolatrous use of visuality?
FRYE: Yes. There is a great difference between the icon and the idol. While the idol is closed, the icon is open. The idol locks up the divine, the numinous, into the objective or natural world, whereas for the icon the divine, the numinous, is always above the objective world.
FABINY: Professor Frye, let me ask you a practical question. You have been teaching young students of literature for about half a century. Should not such abstract things rather be taught to future philosophers or theologians? Are literature majors responsive to these ideas?
FRYE: If I could start again, I would choose literature today as well. You can teach a lot of things through literature. As a young student, I was simply not mature enough biologically to think right at the outset in terms of abstract philosophical or theological concepts. How much do they understand? The work of the teacher is like that of the sower in the parable [Matthew 13:3 ff.; Mark 4:3 ff.; Luke 8:5 ff.]. He sows the seeds, which in some places spring up and bear fruit, while in others they don’t.
FABINY: My last question is absolutely topical. In the past few months, large political changes have occurred in Eastern Europe.4 How do you see these changes, or in a wider sense: how do you envisage the future of the world?
FRYE: As far as the political changes are concerned, they are almost too good to be true. In history there is perhaps no example of nations wanting to become free with this intensity. Of course, the changes may also bring about significant disadvantages, especially in the economy. I also hear about nationalism, the appearance of skinheads, or the persecution of ethnic minorities. A lot of things may happen in a democracy. People who gather may become a faceless crowd and lose their head. There is no doubt I have fears about the future. But my hopes are much stronger than my fears.
FABINY: Professor Frye, I hope that in a year from now I can show you my home country, Hungary. Thank you very much for the interview.