The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature

Rating:
Summary: Parentless and helpless child
Review: Dickens was Dostoyevsky's master. Shaw and Chesterton saw Dickens as a very great writer. His grandfather had been a butler and his grandmother a housekeeper. When Charles's father went to Marshalsea Prison when he was twelve his life changed. His whole nature was penetrated by grief and humiliation. Wilson's theory is that the literary work is compensation for the wound. In the middle of his career Dickens experienced a mounting dislike for the top layers of middle class society. Dickens invented a new literary genre, the novel of the social group. In LITTLE DORRIT the fable was presented through imprisoning states of mind. Dickens was emotionally unstable, almost as unstable as Dostoyevsky.

The wound of Kipling also occurred in his childhood when his parents left him in the care of a heartless aunt while they returned to India. The trauma is recounted by Kipling in BAA, BAA BLACK SHEEP. Kipling's sister termed the place the 'house of desolation'. Kipling's work was shot through with hate. Kipling's failure of nerve may be explained by the fact that he lacked faith in the artist's vocation. Some stories show Kipling's morbid permanent sense of injury. Inescapable illness dominates the later Kipling.

The theme of Casanova's Memoirs is the many things life may hold. Edith Wharton's later work dulled the reputation of her earlier work. Kipling, Dickens, Wharton were all maladjusted. Edith Wharton writes of the conflict between the individual and the social group. Mrs. Wharton was always aware of the pit of misery, the wastefulness of the plutocracy. Wilson believes that Mrs. Wharton's genius was triggered by an exceptional emotional strain.

Hemingway possessed an exceptional mimetic gift. He mastered a precise and clear style. The actual title of the collection of essays is derived from Wilson's essay on Sophocles's play, PHILOCTETES. There is the conception that superior strength is inseparable from disability.