Biography of Northrop Fyre

NORTHROP FYRE

 (1912–1991)

INTRODUCTION

Northrop Frye was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.

FAMILY

Herman Northrop Frye was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec on July 14, 1912. Frye was raised in Moncton, New Brunswick as the third child of Herman Edward Frye and of Catherine Maud Howard. He had an elder brother and a sister named Howard and Vera respectively. The scientist Alma Howard was his first cousin.

EDUCATION

Frye studied for his undergraduate degree at Victoria College, University of Toronto where he edited the college literary journal, Acta Victoriana. He then studied theology at Emmanuel College (part of Victoria College). After a brief stint as student minister in Saskatchewan, he was ordained as a minister of the United Church of Canada. He then received a scholarship to do postgraduate work at Merton College, Oxford. He returned to Canada in 1939 and taught at Victoria College, University of Toronto. Frye became chairman of the English department there in 1952 and served as principal (1959–67) and chancellor (1978–91) of the college. He gave lectures and taught throughout the United States and Great Britain and around the world.

CONTRIBUTIONS

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 long been poorly understood, and 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 to the subject. Moreover, Frye outlined an innovative manner of studying literature that was too deeply influence the study of literature in general. He was a major influence on Harold Bloom, Margaret Atwood, and others.

Anatomy of Criticism  (1957), a book that sought to provide a structural framework for the study of literature through an analysis of its various modes, symbols, myths, images, and genres. The Anatomy, heralded for a generation as a twentieth-century Poetics, had a large following in the 1960s and 1970s, and twenty years after its publication it was the most frequently cited book in the arts and humanities by a writer born in the twentieth century. Seventeen translations of the Anatomy into thirteen languages (as of 2003) attest to its international standing. His work, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature is  a monumental and systematic study of the myths, language, metaphor and symbols of the Hebrew-Christian Bible, published in 1982. Mr. Frye had also written extensively on the works of William Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot. He argued in a 1963 book, The Well-Tempered Critic, that literary criticism was a primary means "to produce out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in." In later works Frye supplemented the examination of archetype and genre with practical criticism. His concept of literature was that of a self-contained total history, rather than a linear progression through time, and he saw the Bible, more than any other source, as the body of myth that shaped Western literature.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Frye engaged in cultural and social criticism and was the recipient of some 39 honorary degrees. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1951 and awarded the Royal Society's Lorne Pierce Medal in 1958 and its Pierre Chauveau Medal in 1970. He won the Canada Council Molson Prize in 1971, and the Royal Bank Award in 1978. In 1987 he received the Governor General's Literary Award and the Toronto Arts Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000, he was honoured by the government of Canada with his image on a postage stamp. An international literary festival The Frye Festival, named in Frye's honour, takes place every April in Moncton, New Brunswick. The Northrop Frye Centre, part of Victoria College at the University of Toronto and Northrop Frye School in Moncton were named in his honour. Frye was named a National Historic Person in 2018.
Frye married Helen Kemp, an educator, editor and artist, in 1937. She died in Australia while accompanying Frye on a lecture tour. Two years after her death in 1986, he married Elizabeth Brown.

SELECTED WORKS

Fearful Symmetry, Anatomy of Criticism, The Educated Imagination, Fables of Identity, The Modern Century, A Study of English Romanticism, The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination, The Critical Path: An Essay on the Social Context of Literary Criticism, Spiritus Mundi: Essays on Literature, Myth, and Society, Northrop Frye on Culture and Literature: A Collection of Review Essays, Myth and Metaphor: Selected Essays.

BIOGRAPHY OF DR. V. SHANTA

    BIOGRAPHY OF DR. V. SHANTA

Dr. V. Shanta is an Indian oncologist who is best known for her efforts towards making quality and affordable cancer treatment accessible to all patients in the country. She dedicated her life to the research on the prevention and care of cancer and organizing care for cancer patients.

Dr. V. Shanta was born on 11th March 1927 at Mylapore, Chennai. She did her schooling from National Girls High School (now P. S Sivswamy Higher Secondary School). Despite the fact that she comes from a family of scientists and Nobel laureates - S. Chandrasekhar (her maternal uncle) and Dr. C. V. Raman (her grand uncle ) - Dr. Shanta decided to become a doctor, inspired by Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, the first woman medical graduate in the country.

She completed her graduation (M. B. B. S) from the Madras Medical College in 1949. She specialised in Gynaecology and obstetrics with a diploma in 1952 and a MD in 1955. In 1950, she had interned briefly with the Cancer Unit of the Government General Hospital.

In 1955, Post - MD, she decided the offer of a Post of Asst. Surgeon in the Women and Children's Hospital, Madras, to which she had been selected by the Madras Public Service Commission. In April that year, she joined Adyar Cancer Institute, established in 1954 by the Women's Indian Association Cancer Relief Fund as its Resident Medical Officer. Since then she has lived in an austere flat on the first floor of the Institute. In 1956-57, she trained in oncology in Toronto and in 1968, studied marrow transplantation in UK.

Dr. V. Shanta is at present chairperson of the Cancer Institute, Chennai. She has played an important role in the development of the institute from a cottage hospital of 12 beds to a major comprehensive Cancer Centre of national and international stature. Today, the Institute has 423 beds, of which 297 are free. Generally, 66% of patients get free or subsidised treatment. She is also credited for developing India's first programme for early detection of cancer in rural areas. She shas trained hundreds of village nurses to screen rural women to cervical cancer.

She has been Chairman of the I DO - US Collaborative group on Lymphoid Neoplasias (Indian chapter), member of many ICMR committees, member of the ICMR task force on Registries and president of the Indian Society of Oncology (88 - 90). She was the president of the Asian and Pacific Federation of Organisations for Cancer Control (97 - 99), President of the 15th Asian and Pacific Cancer Conference (1999) and member of the syndicate of the Anna University. She has participated in a number of scientific International Collaborative Programmes.

She was the recipient of major National and International Awards along with the awards from public and official organisations. In 1986, she was awarded with Padmashri and IARC Award - work for Development of Registries in India in 1997 and Dsc from Shri Venkateswara University for the contribution in the field of medicine in 1998. She received Dsc Tamil Nadu from Dr. M.G.R Medical University and Nazli - Gad - El - Mawla Award for cancer control in a resource poor country, Brussels in 2002.

In 2005, she was conferred with the Ramon Magsaysay Award, better known as the Nobel Prize of Asia and in 2006, Indian government feted her with the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian awardin in the land. She was honoured with Avvaiyar Award by Government of Tamil Nadu, D. Sc from both Dr. NTR University of Health sciences and Sathyabhama University for Life Time Achievement in 2013. She was conferred Padma Vibhusan in 2016.

She has published over 95 papers in national and international journals, contributed chapters in oncology books, delivered many prestigious orations and participated in many international and national conferences.

SUCCESS STORIES OF INDIANS FROM THE FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

BINNY BANSAL AND SACHIN BANSAL – MEN BEHIND FLIPKART

 

Binny Bansal is an Indian technology entrepreneur and the co-founder of Flipkart, India’s favourite shopping website. He was born in 1981 in Chandigarh. He currently resides in Bangalore. His father is a retired chief manager at a bank and his mother is in the government sector. He has no siblings and is married to a homemaker. 

He got a graduation in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi where he met his friend Sachin Bansal. After being rejected by Google twice, Binny had worked with Sarnoff Corporation for a year and a half. Later he worked for Amazon and resigned after nine months along with Sachin Bansal to start their own venture.

 In October 2007, they started Flipkart as an online bookselling website with an initial capital of 400,000 rupees. They launched the website from an apartment in Koramangala, in Bangalore, India. For 10 days, the site did not see even a single sale until a customer from Andhra Pradesh placed the first order for the book, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ by John Wood.  In the early days, Sachin and Binny used to deliver books on their own scooters. They used to give away pamphlets of their company outside bookstores to target their actual customers. Later,they expanded the website into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. Gradually Flipkart slowly grew in prominence.

 In 2016, Bansal became the CEO of Flipkart, where he worked on strategic development, direction and business management. In 2018, Walmart acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart group. After the acquisition, Bansal assumed the role of chairman and continued as Group CEO. His 5.5% stake in Flipkart was valued at $1 billion after the acquisition. He resigned from Flipkart in November 2018 on allegations of personal misconduct. He started to invest into new projects like image processing startup Terraview in 2019.

In September 2015 along with Sachin Bansal, he was named the 86th richest person in India with a net worth of $1.3 billion by Forbes India Rich List. India Today ranked them 26th in India's 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list. 

SUCCESS STORIES OF INDIANS FROM THE FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

SACHIN BANSAL AND BINNY BANSAL – MEN BEHIND FLIPKART

Sachin Bansal is the co-founder of Flipkart that changed India’s shopping style. He is an Indian technology entrepreneur and a passionate gamer.

He was born on 5th August 1981 in Chandigarh. His father was a businessman and mother was a homemaker. He had completed his schooling from Saint Anne’s Convent School. He pursued 49^th rank in All India JEE rankings and got into Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

After graduation, Bansal worked at Techspan for a few months and later in 2006 he joined Amazon Web Services as a Senior Software Engineer. Later, his friend Binny Bansal also started working in Amazon. In 2007, both of them decided to quit their job to start his own venture.

 In October 2007, they started Flipkart as an online bookselling website with an initial capital of 400,000 rupees . They launched the website from an apartment in Koramangala, in Bangalore, India. For 10 days, the site did not see even a single sale until a customer from Andhra Pradesh placed the first order for the book, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ by John Wood.  In the early days, Sachin and Binny used to deliver books on their own scooters. They used to give away pamphlets of their company outside bookstores to target their actual customers. Later,they expanded the website into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. Gradually Flipkart slowly grew in prominence.

From inception until 2016, Bansal held the position of Chief Executive Officer and from 2016 until 2018, he held the position of Executive Chairman. In 2018, he exited Flipkart along with the Walmart deal that acquired  77 percent stakes of the company at $16 billion. The non-compete clause restricted Bansal from starting any business that directly or indirectly competed with Flipkart for 18 months and in making any investments in businesses competing with Flipkart for 36 months from his departure.

Bansal wanted focus on his pending personal projects, gaming and brushing up his coding skills. Later , he founded BAC Acquisitions Private Limited, a venture that focused on building and acquiring technology-driven businesses . In 2019, he had investments in Ola, Grey Orange, Ather Energy, SigTuple, Inshorts, Unacademy , CRIDS and TeamIndus.