The Protean Self: Dramatic Action in Contemporary Fiction PDF
Preview The Protean Self: Dramatic Action in Contemporary Fiction
THE PROTEAN SELF THE PROTEAN SELF Dramatic Action in Contemporary Fiction Alan Kennedy Macmillan Education o Alan Kennedy 197 4 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1974 All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published 7974 by THE MACMillAN PRESS LTD London and Basing stoke Associated companies in New Tork Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 16603 5 ISBN 978-1-349-02219-9 ISBN 978-1-349-02217-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02217-5 For Shelagh and Angus Contents Preface IX Introduction: Fictions, Selves and the Sociology of Role- 1 playing 1 Dramatic Action, the Modern and the Post-Modern 27 2 The Novel as a Social Fiction 63 3 Language, Mimesis and the Numinous in Joyce 99 Cary's Second Trilogy 4 Cannibals, Okapis and Self-Slaughter in the Fiction 151 of Muriel Spark 5 Christopher Isherwood's Psychological Makeup 213 6 h'lconsistencies of Narration in Graham Greene 231 7 JohnFowles'sSenseofanEnding 251 8 Conclusion: A Quick Look Around 261 List of Abbreviations 287 Notes 289 Index 303 Vll Preface In the Introduction I try to outline the way in which while engaged in literary criticism I encroached on the borders of Sociology. I have also found myself at the border with Philo sophy and no doubt the awkwardness of my forays into alien territory will not go undetected by professional border-guards. I would like to be able to take some comfort in the belief that (according to Wm Righter in Logic and Criticism, 1963) the value of criticism is not in the conclusions it reaches but in the interest it arouses on the way towards a conclusion. Despite the fact that criticism is not like normal argument, and the additional fact that Art is not Philosophy, the critic cannot escape being a thinker and he must be prepared to accept the consequences of his own thought and its shortcomings. It must therefore be ad mitted that a concept of the nature of the Self emerges from the following study, and while it cannot be called a philosophical disquisition I naturally hope that this book will serve to reveal what the Self is like in some modern literature. Such infor mation should be of interest to those whose task it is to con struct systems of thought; and it could also be of some interest to those common readers of whom I am one, who like to think that on occasion creative literature has a 'philosophy' in the old-fashioned sense. The concept of the Self I have called the 'protean self' and the reader, if he is the sort who reads introductions first will find some elucidation there. Others who read introductions as they are usually written, after the main text, but would like a short explication of the title will find the phrase from Coleridge that gives rise to it on p. 8. I am greatly indebted to Alex Rodger of the University of Edinburgh, who not only provided a stimulus in the form of in telligent, wide-ranging conversation, but also carefully read IX X Preface and commented on this work in all its stages. I benefited also from a few brief conversations I was able to have with Sam Goldberg during his stay in Edinburgh. Frank Kermode was kind enough to read a draft of the chapter on Muriel Spark and make some encouraging comments. The financial support of the Canada Council gave me the time. I am grateful to Walter Allen for reading and commenting on this book in its early form. Acknowledgement is due to the following: the University of Texas Press for permission to use material published in an ar ticle on Cary's second trilogy in Texas Studies in Literature and Language (Summer 197 4); the Bodley Head and Random House, Inc., for the extract from Ulysses by James joyce; Chatto & Windus Ltd and Barnes & Noble, Inc., for the extract from The Classical Temper by S. L. Goldberg; Faber & Faber Ltd for extracts from The Self As Agent by John MacMurray; Faber & Faber Ltd and Random House, Inc., for extracts from 'Talking to Myself' from Epistle to a-Godson by W. H. Auden; New Direc tions Publishing Corporation, New York, for 'The Desert Music' from Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems, copyright 1954 by William Carlos Williams. A.K. As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves-goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying What I do is me: for that I came. Gerard Manley Hopkins Only the counted poem, to an exact measure: to imitate, not to copy nature, not to copy nature NOT, prostrate, to copy nature but a dance! to dance two and two with him- 'The Desert Music', William Carlos Williams Our marriage is a drama, but no stage-play where what is not spoken is not thought: in our theatre all that I cannot syllable You will pronounce in acts whose raison d'etre escapes me. Why secrete fluid when I dole, or stretch your lips when I joy? 'Talking to Myself', W. H. Auden Xl Introduction: Fictions, Selves and the Sociology of Role-playing Although the prime intention of this book is to be no more than literary criticism, or what is often called practical criticism, I have found it impossible to be altogether practical in criticism without being also a little theoretical. If practical criticism is a method of' close reading' - and the imprecision of that term is revealed by asking what its apparent opposite, distant reading, could possibly be -then it is a method virtually without a meth odology. Close reading is practical, pragmatic; and it yields results. It is the ground of all worthwhile discussion ofliterature and any merit that any of the following discussion of twentieth century fiction may have is the result of an attempt to be as 'thorough' as possible in reading what is there in the text in question. If attention is confined to any one text, perhaps it is possible to be completely practical and focus only on the in ternal patterns of imagery and so on. To look at several texts, however, and to find that similar patterns are being widely used forces one on to questions that are not merely practical, but which are demanding and important questions nevertheless. And of course it would be the height of impracticality if the effect ofliterature were to keep us forever circling around inside the patterned confines of any one iconical text-and there, with the word 'icon' we come upon at least the ideology of practical criticism. We rightly expect literature to be practical in another sense; to be of some use to us after we close the covers and start again to go abbut the daily business of living. To have access to this kind of practicality, it is necessary to pose questions which are usually considered to be theoretical; questions such as, 1
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