American Hieroglyphics: The Symbol of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics in the American Renaissance

385 Pages·1980·6.654 MB·English

by  John T. Irwin

AMERICAN H IEROGL YPHICS

AMERICAN HIEROGLYPHICS
The Symbol of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics
in the American Renaissance
JOHN T. IRWIN
New Haven and London
Yale University Press
Copyright© 1980 by Yale University.
All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections I 07
and I 08 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by
reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publishers.
Designed by Sally Harris
and set in VIP Baskerville type.
Printed in the United States of America by
Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, N.Y.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Irwin, John T
American hieroglyphics.
Includes index.
I.
American literature-I 9th century-History and
criticism. 2. Hieroglyphics in literature.
3. Egypt in literature. 4. American literature­
Egyptian influences. 5. Egyptian language-Writing,
Hieroglyphic. I. Title.
PS217.H54I7 810'.9'15 80-130
ISBN 0-300-024 71-1
IO 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
For Laura,
the face in the misty light,
and for
the outrageous Harold

Regard the capture here, 0 Janus-faced,
As double as the hands that twist this glass.
Such eyes at search or rest you cannot see;
Reciting pain or glee, how can you bear!
Twin shadowed halves: the breaking second holds
In each the skin alone, and so it is
I crust a plate of vibrant mercury
Borne cleft to you, and brother in the half. . . .
Look steadily-how the wind feasts and spins
The brain's disk shivered against lust. Then watch
While darkness, like an ape's face, falls away,
And gradually white buildings answer day.
Let the same nameless gulf beleaguer us-
Alike suspend us from atrocious sums
Built floor by floor on shafts of steel that grant
The plummet heart, like Absalom, no stream.
Hart Crane, "Recitative"
"But you are trying to reconcile the book and the author. A book is
the writer's secret life, the dark twin of a man: you can't reconcile
them. And with you, when the inevitable clash comes, the author's
actual self is the one that goes down, for you are of those for whom
fact and fallacy gain verisimilitude by being in cold print."
Julius Kauffman in Faulkner's Mosquitoes

CONTENTS
Preface
XI
PART ONE: EMERSON, THOREAU, AND WHITMAN
1. Champollion and the Historical Background; Emerson's
Hieroglyphical Emblems 3
2. Thoreau: The Single, Basic Form-Patenting a Leaf 14
3. Whitman: Hieroglyphic Bibles and Phallic Songs 20
PART TWO: POE
4. The Hieroglyphics and the Quest for Origins: The Myth of
Hieroglyphic Doubling 43
5. Ends and Origins: The Voyage to the Polar Abyss and the
Journey to the Source of the Nile; The Survival of the
Manuscript 64
6. Certainty and Credibility-Self-Evidence and
Self-Reference; Nietzsche and Tragedy-Whitman and
Opera; The Open Road 94
7. Writing Self I Written Self; The Dark Double; The
Overwhelming of the Vessel 114
8. Cannibalism and Sacrifice; Metaphors of the
Body-Transfiguration, Transubstantiation, Resurrection,
and Ascension 129
9. Narcissus and the Illusion of Depth 148
10. Self-Recognition; Deciphering a Mnemic Inscription;
Historical Amnesia and Personal Anamnesis 163
11. Repetition; Symbolic Death and Rebirth; The Infinite and
the Indefinite; The Mechanism of Foreshadowing 183
12. The Unfinished Narrative; The Cavern Inscription on
Tsalal; Survival in an Image 195
13. The White Shadow; Imaging the Indefinite; Reading the
Spirit from the Letter; The Finality of Revenge; The Alogical
Status of the Self 205
IX