Autobiography and Imagination: Studies in Self-scrutinyThis book looks at the autobiographical work of nine twentieth-century writers – Henry Adams, Henry James, W. B. Yeats, Boris Pasternak, Leiris, Jean-Paul Sartre, Vladimir Nabokov, Henry Green and Adrian Stokes. The author argues that often the writer has shaped his life through his craft, coming to understand the pattern of his own existence through the formalism of language. In each case the writer stamps his personality on the work by mean of a distinctive verbal surface whose discipline enables him to evade narrow egotism and forces both reader and writer into an act of collaboration and corroboration. Written at a time when criticism was turning to focus on the relation between the reader and the text, this study added a provocative dimension to the debate and is still an important read today. |
Contents
The Education of Henry Adams 1907 | 8 |
4 | 36 |
Safe Conduct 1931 | 50 |
Copyright | |
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Adams appear artist attempt autobiography become beginning believe biography called chapter child childhood clear clearly complex concerned context critics death describes discussion dream edition Education effect essay event experience fact father feelings figure final genre gives Green Henry Ibid idea imagination important intent interest James James's kind L'Age d'homme later least Leiris Leiris's less letter literary literature lives London looking matter means Memory mind mother Mots Nabokov narrative nature never novel object obviously once Park particular past Pasternak perhaps precisely preface present Press problem question reader references relation reminded Reveries role Safe Conduct Sartre Sartre's seems seen sense Small Boy Speak Stokes story Strong suggests things University wanted whole writing written Yeats Yeats's York young