死後出版物に見るウィルスン像の特質
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概要
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Fourteen years have already passed since we heard of the death of Edmund Wilson, a distinguished man of letters in America. In recent years very few studies have been devoted to him in our country in spite of the fact that he had enjoyed wide fame and popularity in both academic and literary circles. Why is this so? The first reason is that it is hard to find in his enormous body of writings any attempt to develop a systematic view of literature. We are, therefore, forced to scrutinize his casual remarks and opinions to make out the core of his literary thought. The second is that his writings are so diverse in comparison with others, Lionel Trilling, for instance, that we are at a loss how to fix a viewpoint which can afford us a good vista of all of his works. Taking these difficulties into account, I am sure a critical biography is the fittest form to describe him. Fortunately, we are now presented with several posthumous works including his diaries, notebooks and correspondence. They are The Twenties (1975), The Thirties (1980), The Forties (1983), Letters on Literature and Politics (1977), and The Nabokov-Wilson Letters (1979). My thesis is a modest attempt to seize the core of his mind in order to prepare for a work on a more detailed critical biography. Reading through these books, we are increasingly aware of the fact that he was somehow obsessed with reality, especially with the external objects which could give sensuous pleasures. V. S. Pritchett, a famous British writer, called it 'fact-fetishism.' So, as a writer, he was the type to start with reality, rather than with words like Nabokov. This inclination in him naturally affected his view of literature, which was extremely pragmatic and made much of the curative value that literature could bring about both in a writer and a reader.
- 湘南工科大学の論文
- 1987-03-26