Get Free Shipping on orders over $89
Fearful Symmetry : A Study of William Blake - Northrop Frye

Fearful Symmetry

A Study of William Blake

By: Northrop Frye, Nicholas Halmi (Foreword by)

Paperback | 1 November 2025

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $39.99

$33.75

16%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $8.44 with

 or 
In Stock and Ships in 1-2 business days

The landmark book that situates Blake's poetry within the intellectual movements of his day and unlocks his symbolism for modern readers.

Since it was first published, Northrop Frye's Fearful Symmetry has established itself as the defining commentary on the poetic vision of William Blake. Frye gives a complete solution to the riddles of Blake's longer poems the so-called 'Prophecies' and demonstrates how Blake's works form a coherent mythical pattern that broadens our conception of literature. He explains how Blake arrived at a theory of knowledge that was also, for him, a theory of religion, life, and art, and how this rigorously defined system of ideas found expression in the complicated but consistent symbolism of his poetry. With an incisive foreword by scholar and literary critic Nicholas Halmi, this Princeton Classics edition shows how Blake reflects the literary and the intellectual atmosphere of his time while holding renewed meaning for us today.


About the Author

Northrop Frye (1912-1991) was University Professor at the University of Toronto, where he was also professor of English at Victoria College. His books include Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton).

Nicholas Halmi is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Oxford and the Margaret Candfield Tutorial Fellow in English at University College.

More in Poetry By Individual Poets

No Hiding From the Woman in the Moon - Bruce Pascoe

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
Light and Thread - Han Kang

RRP $29.99

$24.99

17%
OFF
You're Going to Be OK : (Because You're F*cked No Matter What) - Darby Hudson
Loves of Our Lives : Poems for hopeful hearts - Josie Balka

RRP $39.99

$31.99

20%
OFF
Dropbear : Winner of the 2022 Stella Prize - Evelyn Araluen

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Department of the Vanishing - Johanna Bell

RRP $34.99

$29.99

14%
OFF
Mirror Landscape : New and Selected Poems - Lisa Gorton

RRP $35.00

$29.99

14%
OFF
The Rot : Shortlisted for the 2026 Stella Prize - Evelyn Araluen

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
The Essential Rumi : New Expanded Edition - Coleman Barks

RRP $32.99

$23.09

30%
OFF
the love of my life : poetry for rediscovery - Whitney Hanson

RRP $32.99

$24.99

24%
OFF
The Epic of Gilgamesh : Penguin Classics - Andrew George

RRP $26.99

$20.75

23%
OFF
Paradise Lost : Penguin Classics - John Milton

RRP $24.99

$15.75

37%
OFF
The Peace of Wild Things : And Other Poems - Wendell Berry

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
The Spiritual Poems of Rumi : Translated by Nader Khalili - Rumi
The Divine Comedy : Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso - Dante Alighieri

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Complete Poems Of Banjo Paterson - A. B. Paterson

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
Same : Poems on love, sisterhood and womanhood - Hannah Rosenberg