Stream Of Consciousness In The Modern Novel

This book made available by the Internet Archive. Preface Stream of consciousness —what doesn't the phrase conjure up? Innermost confessions, wells of suppressed energy, daring experimentation, the passing fad, the welter of indiscrimination? Applied to the novel, it is, as Dorothy Richardson once said, a term characterized by its "perfect imbecility." But we have the term; it is ours. Our task now is to make it useful and meaningful, which means we have to come to some agreement on what it is; or, at the least, we need to have a fairly definite point of departure for intelligent discourse. The chapter titles of the following study indicate the focus of this modest contribution to such discourse. It will be noticed that three of the five chapters deal with problems of technique. In a sense, then, this study is a kind of manual of how to write stream-of-consciousness fiction, determined inductively rather than theoretically. Pervading the analysis of techniques, however, is something else; there is, for one thing, an appraisal of an important aspect of the contemporary literary scene; and for another, there is interpretation and evaluation of the novels and novelists taken as examples. Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner are the writers who appear most prominently in the following pages—not arbitrarily, but because they are, at once, important novelists and representative stream-of-consciousness writers. Clarity of illustration rather than variety and balance has been the deciding factor in choosing excerpts for examples. If Joyce steals many of the scenes, it is because he is most versatile and most skillful. There will be many things remaining to be said about stream of consciousness in the modern novel. I have consciously avoided several interesting problems. The complexity of my subject dictated such limiting if my central task of clarifying a literary term was to be accomplished. I have not, therefore, investigated the historical antecedents and influences, except in passing to explain technical problems; nor have I made an attempt to catalogue fiction to determine finally what is and what is not stream of consciousness; and finally, with more regret, I have minimized philosophical speculation. Many acknowledgments are in order; the following persons I wish to thank publicly: Leon Howard, to whom the book is dedicated — a slight gesture compared to the rare dedication he proffers to his students; Leonard Unger, that true colleague, for suggestions and encouragement; Harry and Mary Frissell, for aid in preparing the manuscript; Mr. Glenn Gosling and Mr. James Kubeck, of the University of California Press, for kind and wise editorial aid; Dean Russell and the Research Council, Louisiana State University, for generous financial assistance. I wish to thank the following publishers who have permitted me to quote from copyrighted materials: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for Pilgrimage by Dorothy Richardson; The Viking Press, Inc., for Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce; Random House, Inc., for Ulysses by James Joyce, for The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and for World Enough and Time by Robert Penn Warren; and Harcourt, Brace and Co., for Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and for All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. Parts of chapters 1 and 4 have appeared in modified form in Philological Quarterly and The University of Kansas City Review. Robert Humphrey Louisiana State University September, 1953 vi The Functions The discovery that memories, thoughts, and feelings exist outside the primary consciousness is the most important step forward that has occurred in psychology since I have been a student of that science. William James Stream of consciousness is one of the delusive terms which writers and critics use. It is delusive because it sounds concrete and