Introduction: The Raison D’etre of this Book

Abstract

My overall approach in this collection is twofold in its emphasis. On the one hand I am concerned with White’s evocation of dimensions other than material reality (in my essays on Voss, White and Cather, and his preoccupation with epiphanies and mythmaking). And on the other hand I offer a series of analytical studies of his themes and characters in his major novels (in my essays on The Aunt’s Story, The Tree of Man and Voss), and even of the man himself (in my discussion of the importance of White’s oedipal relationship to his mother in my essay on White and Rimbaud).