Browsing by Author "De Villiers, Dawid Willem, 1972-"

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    Vision and voice : D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac as autobiographers of the soul
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1999-09) De Villiers, Dawid Willem, 1972-; Green, B.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: At the root of this thesis lies a certain spirit that imbues the work of D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac, different as their work undeniably is. It is this spirit, or quality, difficult to pin down and circumscribe, that first instilled the trust and belief (if one may use a term in keeping with the subject) that there are certain significantly similar characteristics in what must remain three very different literary voices. Furthermore, it became increasingly clear that one could not divorce any comparative discussion of these voices from the specific worldview, philosophy or "metaphysic", to use Lawrence's term - in short, vision - that informs and shapes each writer's voice. Significantly, it is inasmuch as their visions are comparable that their voices also are. It is the "coming into being" of the modem individual that lies at the centre of the fiction of Lawrence, Miller and Kerouac. It is my contention that their conceptions of the dynamic of this process have much in common, and that therefore, their voices share certain important characteristics. At the root of their respective visions lies the belief that modem western society has a stifling effect on the individual, a belief which results in a clear and unambiguous rejection of the modem social system, by both the writers and their central protagonists. For them it is essentially in society's materialism, or mechanised conformity, that the wholeness of the individual, and a more vital sense of place in the world is threatened. Their call, then, is for the individual to reject social codes and conventions, and this "criminality" is reflected on a textual level in the urgent, exuberant and generally transgressive (also controversial, in terms of contemporary standards) nature of their fiction. In addition to this, the very dynamic of the individual's "coming into being" is conceived of as a leaping off into the unknown, an abandonment to the chthonic flux and the flow of the (collective) unconscious. This is a "sacred instant", which effects the dissolution of the individual (self-) consciousness, and, upon ceasing, propels the individual into a new sense of self. It is around such "sacred instants" that the work of these writers is organised. For the purpose of placing them in the canon I have defined Lawrence, Miller and Kerouac as visionary writers, coming from a tradition decidedly Romantic in its focus on the (creative) individual. To this end I have included a necessarily brief consideration of basic Romantic tenets which I explore in terms of Lawrence's, Miller's and Kerouac's shared literary hero, the American poet, Walt Whitman. In this opening discussion I explore and elaborate on some of the major qualities and concepts put to use in the course of this thesis. Whitman is useful as an introduction also because he (like many of the Romantics) tends to blur the boundaries between himself and his protagonists/speakers. This is particularly the case with Miller and Kerouac, but Lawrence himself draws very strongly on autobiographical details in writing his fiction. Since, then, their fictions tend to draw on the writers' lives so overtly (while frequently altering and adapting the precise autobiographical facts), I have approached Lawrence, Miller and Kerouac as autobiographers of the soul, inasmuch as they trace the development of the individual soul (or self) in the context of external experiences.