The Myth of Power in Modern American Literature

FAIN: FT-13378-77

Harold Kaplan
Northwestern University (Evanston, IL 60208-0001)

To work on chapters on the work of Hemingway, West, and Faulkner, part of a book on the mythology of power as manifested in modern American literature. PI will use Henry Adams' view of nature as a system of rival and often hostile energies as an analytic instrument. Subtopics of this theme are "naturalist shock" and "naturalist pathos," which will be concerned with the clash between power concepts and value terms, and the ways in which energy symbols tend to become normative sanctions or threats.