The danse macabre: the fiction of J.P. Donleavy and Henry Miller

Authors

  • Peter James Harris State University of São Paulo (UNESP)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v8i0.3718

Keywords:

J.P. Donleavy, Henry Miller, Death.

Abstract

The work of two writers, J.P. Donleavy and Henry Miller is compared. It is argued that the anarchic behaviour of the characters in the fiction of both writers is in defiance of the void they perceive to be at the centre of things, an exuberance in the face of death, a danse macabre.

Author Biography

  • Peter James Harris, State University of São Paulo (UNESP)

    PETER JAMES HARRIS lectures in English Literature and English Culture at the State University of São Paulo (UNESP), in São José do Rio Preto, Brazil. Born in London
    he has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in Irish Studies from the University of São Paulo (USP). In 2004 he published Sean O’Casey’s Letters and Autobiographies: Reflections of a Radical Ambivalence (Trier: WVT). He has also published articles on twentieth-century Irish playwrights, as well as a paper on Roger Casement’s 1910 Amazon expedition. He has recently completed a post-doctorate at Royal Holloway University of London, researching into the presence of Irish dramatists
    on the London stage in the period from Independence to the present day.

References

Beckett, S. All That Fall. London: Faber and Faber, 1959.

Connolly, C. The Unquiet Grave. London: Penguin, 1967.

Donleavy, J.P. The Ginger Man. London: Penguin, 1972.

____. The Onion Eaters. London: Penguin, 1972.

____. The Saddest Summer of Samuel S. London: Penguin, 1972.

Gordon, W.A. The Mind and Art of Henry Miller. London: Cape, 1972.

Hassan, I. The Literature of Silence. New York: Knopf, 1969.

____. ‘The Novel of Outrage.’ The American Novel Since World War II. Ed. Klein, M. New York: Fawcett, 1970.

____. Radical Innocence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961.

Ibsen, H. Peer Gynt. London: Penguin, 1970.

Karl, F.R. A Reader’s Guide to the Contemporary English Novel. London: Thames and Hudson, 1972.

LeClair, T. ‘The Onion Eaters’ and the Rhetoric of Donleavy’s Comedy.’ Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 18, 1972.

Miller, H. Sexus. London: Panther, 1972.

____. Tropic of Cancer. London: Panther, 1972.

Orwell, G. ‘Inside the Whale.’ The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Eds. S. Orwell and I. Angus, Vol. 1 (1920-1940). London: Secker and Warburg, 1968.

Sherman, W.D. ‘J.P. Donleavy: Anarchic Man as Dying Dionysian.’ Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 13, 1968.

Weales, G. ‘No face and no exit: the fiction of James Purdy and J.P. Donleavy.’ Contemporary American Novelists. Ed. H.T. Moore. Springfield: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965.

Widmer, K. Henry Miller. New York: Twayne, 1963.

Downloads

Published

17-06-2006

Issue

Vol. 8 (2006): ABEI Journal 8

Section

Fiction

How to Cite

Harris, P. J. (2006). The danse macabre: the fiction of J.P. Donleavy and Henry Miller. ABEI Journal, 8, 63-77. https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v8i0.3718