Writing Under the Influence Alcoholism and the Alcoholic Perception from Hemingway to Berryman

by Djos, Matts G.

• ISBN13: 9780230102606
• ISBN10: 0230102603
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-04-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The book offers a socio-critical analysis of the alcoholic perception in the poetry and fiction of modern American alcoholic writers. Matts Djos focuses on primary indicators of alcohol addiction (fear, manipulation, anger, loneliness, and antic-social behavior) and their expression in modern American literature. After providing a general foundation for analysis of the psychological effects of the disease, this volume scrutinizes the work of Ernest Hemingway, John Berryman, E.A. Robinson, Hart Crane, Theodore Roetheke, Robert Lowell, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner. The detail provides critical and in-depth perspective on the workings of the alcoholic mind.

Author Biography

Matts G. Djos is Professor of English at Mesa State University.

Table of Contents

A Note on the Author	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Forward	p. xiii
The Foundations of Alcoholic Thinking and the Role of Fantasy, Alienation, and Rebellion	p. 1
Alcoholism in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: A Wine and Roses Perspective of the Lost Generation	p. 13
Addiction and Spirituality in Contemporary American Poetry: Frustration and Paradox	p. 29
John Berryman's "Phase Four" and His Precarious Attempt to Find a Compromise between Drunkenness, Sobriety, and the A.A. Twelve Step Program of Recovery	p. 43
The Grand Illusion: Evasion, Survival, and Self-Hate	p. 53
The Alcoholic Isolation and Fall to Self-Destruction in Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Mr. Flood's Party"	p. 61
Sex and Promiscuity: Conjugal Detachment and the Fear of Intimacy	p. 69
Alcoholic Guilt and Emotional Paralysis: Bathos, Incongruity, and Frustration	p. 79
The Contaminated Vision: The Alcoholic Perspective in Hart Crane's "The Wine Menagerie"	p. 87
Clowns and Bedlam: The Dark Side of Alcoholic Humor	p. 95
Through a Glass Darkly: Death and Dissolution	p. 105
Afterword	p. 115
A Note on the Author	p. 119
The Emotional, Spiritual, and Physical Dimensions of Alcoholism: An Overview	p. 131
Twelve Step Programs and the Literature of Addiction	p. 137
A.A.'s Primary Texts: Alcoholics Anonymous and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: A Review	p. 145
Suggested Additional Reading	p. 153
Notes	p. 155
Bibliography	p. 165
Index	p. 171
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