One of the distinguished literary critics in the 20th century Northrop Frye is fully qualified to be remembered and positively reevaluated in the study of literature and religion. However, his literary world has not been adequately studied by Korean scholars and literary critics. For this reason the purpose of this paper is to introduce his literary world and examine it with the perspective of literary-biblical scholarship. The archetypal criticism has been regarded as his peculiar method for combining myth with proclamation(kerygma). According to him, the Bible is literature wearing the cloth of a sufficient metaphor. And in the Bible there are various mythic stories built in metaphor. In many cases myth reveals its own meaning in a form of typology. Typology is a manner of combination between archetype and antitype. The Old Testament is combined by typology with the New Testament. Frye pays attention to the importance of myth in the Bible in the atmosphere of depreciation of myth in the field of biblical studies, which was initiated by the biblical scholar R. Bultmann. His schematic framework stands on the archetypological interpretation of the Bible. Frye constantly negotiates Christian typology and mythic archetype. Also he enriches typology with patterns drawn from comparative anthropology. His archetypological interpretation surely widens our eyes to see the mythic wholeness and unity of the Bible. Of course there has been some criticisms of his insights and method. That is, his reading of the Bible through the archetypology revives a form of Christian supersessionism that detaches the Hebrew Scriptures from the shifting complications of their particular realizations. However, his academic achievements cannot be depreciated by few problems. As he quotes Bruno’s saying(Est aliquid prodisse tenus) in the introduction of the Great Code, it is great that he preceded to a certain extent in the study of literature and religion.

• 서명수 | Suh, Myung Soo