Elegiac Romance: Cultural Change and Loss of the Hero in Modern Fiction

by Kenneth A. Bruffee

Kenneth Bruffee here identifies and defines a genret of 20th-century fiction that has been largely overlooked by that of an elegiac romance. He shows how three thematic strands - quest romance, the impact of loss and rapid change, and the discrediting of hero worship and heroism - appeared together first in narrative form in the early fiction of Joseph Conrad and were subsequently developed by a number of major writers influenced by Conrad. Brufree first surveys the historical context of the genre. He demonstrates that although in its traditional form quest romance has failed to represent modern human needs and aspirations, it has survived in a significant new form in elegiac romance. He asserts that heroism has disappeared from 20th-century Western literature and culture and has been replaced by the exemplary modern figure - the elegiac romance narrator - who suffers, confronts, and finally outgrows the delusions of hero worship. Among the writers proof the treats are Ford Maddox Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert Penn Warren, Thomas Mann, Nebokov, Borges, Kafka, Proust, and J. D. Salinger. Elegiac Romance provides an analytical tool to help understand these and other contemporary writers as well as other forms of fiction, including the psychological novel. It also contributes to the current discussion about referentiality and fiction, The book will alter the way the tradition of quest romance is understood and will appeal not only to Conrad specialists but to scholars and students of modern fiction and of contemporary critical theory as well. --- from book's dustjacket

248 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1983

About the author

Kenneth A. Bruffee is Professor of English and Director of the Scholars Program and the Honors Academy at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

A graduate of Wesleyan University with a Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University, he has taught at the University of New Mexico, Northwestern University, the University of Virginia, Columbia University, Cooper Union, and the University of Pennsylvania. He directed a FIPSE-funded Institute in Peer Tutoring and Collaborative Learning in 1979-82. He has held a Broeklundian Professorship at Brooklyn College, 1991-94, and was a Wolfe Institute Faculty Fellow, 1991-92.