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WRIGHT MORRIS' SECOND THOUGHTS: THE NOVELIST'S REUSE OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL
Abstract
Three things set Wright Morris apart from other contemporary novelists: (1) his creative integration of photography and fiction, (2) his way of recycling the same segments of autobiographical material, and (3) his construction and elucidation of a coherent theory of fiction. Although Morris' remarks about fiction are somewhat unsystematic, his four critical books and uncollected essays indicate that he has a theory of fiction emphasizing the artist's nature and role, the artist's relation to raw material, the artist's relation to tradition, and the importance of technique. An opening chapter of this dissertation outlines the theory, examines each of these concepts, and establishes key definitions that inform all Morris' works. A second chapter picks up several theoretical cues in order to isolate central themes of Morris' black and white photo-text books and analyze his photographic methodology. To Morris, photographs, like words, reflect both real and imagined experience and are the result of the artist's imaginative and conceptual tampering with raw materials. A third and fourth chapter pair The Works of Love and Will's Boy, and Cause for Wonder and Solo, respectively, to show the way in which Morris uses technique and consciousness to control and shape autobiographical material. In each pairing, Morris begins with essentially the same raw experience, but reuses and transforms it according to his artistic needs--first as a novel and then as a memoir. In so doing he indicates that even fragmentary pieces of raw material and imprecise memory, when properly honed and formed by the imagination, can provide the substance for repeated transfigurations. Moreover, the recycling of much of the same material in both the novels and memoirs suggests Morris' belief that fact and fiction influence each other constantly and are often impossible to separate.
Subject Area
Literature
Recommended Citation
RICE, RODNEY PAUL, "WRIGHT MORRIS' SECOND THOUGHTS: THE NOVELIST'S REUSE OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL" (1987). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8722418.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8722418