The Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre. by William C.

Spengemann; Approaches to Victorian Autobiography. by George P. Landow

Review by: Jerome H. Buckley
Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jun., 1981), pp. 79-83
Published by: University of California Press
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 Reviews
WILLIAM C. SPENGEMANN,The Forms of Autobiography:Episodes in
the Historyof a LiteraryGenre. New Haven and London: Yale Uni-
versityPress,1980. Pp. xvii + 254. $19.50. ?12.30.

GEORGE P. LANDOW,ed., Approaches to Victorian Autobiography.

Athens,Ohio: Ohio UniversityPress,1979. Pp. xlvi + 359. $16.00.

"Everyman's work,"remarksthenarratorof The Wayof All Flesh,

"whetherit be literatureor music or picturesor architectureor any-
thingelse is alwaysa portraitof himself,and the more he triesto con-
ceal himselfthe more clearlywill his characterappear in spite of him."
By thisstandardall fictionbecomesto a degreeautobiographical,though
not much of it perhaps as transparently so as Samuel Butler's fictional
self-portrait. The converseproposition,that all autobiographyis es-
sentiallyfictionaland sooneror later mergeswith the novel, recursin
a good many recentstudiesof the autobiographicalgenre. If tenable,
the notion must extend-rather alarmingly,I should think-the al-
ready considerablescope of Nineteenth-Century Fiction.
To The FormsofAutobiographyWilliam C. Spengemannappends
a splendid criticalbibliographynearlyhalf as long as his whole essay
and largelysupportiveof it. Yet his own argumentis in itselforiginal
and freshlyprovocative,independent in judgment,closely reasoned,
somewhatarbitraryin selectionof examples.He beginsby notinghow
elusive the term has become. "Autobiography,"he reminds us, no
longerdenotes simply"a self-written biography,"and oftenindeed is
not that at all. Almost any literaryattempt at self-definition now
qualifiesforindusion in the genre.Its mostsophisticatedformsreflect
"the modernistmovementaway fromrepresentational discoursetoward
self-enacting, self-reflexiveverbal structures."Accordingly,as Spenge.
mann sees it, at its best and purestit will make no distinctionbetween
fact and fiction;the true autobiographywill have no "referentiality"
beyondthe textitself,no relationwhateverto the actual circumstances
of its author'slife. It will, in short,be a novel like The ScarletLetter
(to citeSpengemann'sclimacticexhibit),"a workthatretainsno vestige
of theself-biographical mode."

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80 Fiction
Nineteenth-Century
Though he concedesthat not all autobiographyeven now reaches
such sublimation,Spengemanntraces the source of the modem form
back to the thirdand final part of The Confessionsof St. Augustine.
The firstand mostfactualsectionof thisgreatarchetype,the chapters
concernedwith Augustine'slife beforeconversion,he calls "historical"
autobiography, an effort at "self-explanation" such as he findspracticed
later by Bunyan and Benjamin Franklin.The second part, devoted to
metaphysicalspeculationson time, memory,and the meaning of the
conversion,is "philosophical" autobiography,an exercise in "self-
scrutiny,"repeatedwith variationsby Rousseau, Wordsworth,and De
Quincey.The thirdpart,the concludingpoem-prayer, is "poetic" auto-
biography,an imaginativeflight,or "fiction,"designedas "self-expres-
sion" or ultimately,as it reappearsin Carlyle,Dickens,and Hawthorne,
self-creationthrough myth and symbol. Augustine thus provides a
model for all threefutureforms-and even for a modernmodish de-
constructionism, insofaras "each succeedingpart calls into question the
narrativemode and ideological assumptionsof the one preceding."
As Spengemanninterprets its evolution,autobiographymovesstead-
ily toward a complete subjectivity.Franklin's "historical"kind is al-
ready old-fashionedat the time of composition,since it appeals to a
general Reason, an objectiveideal no longer tenable in the late eigh-
teenthcentury.Rousseau's "philosophic" sort,on the otherhand, is to
be admiredas forward-looking, witha modernawarenessof therelativ-
ity of personal impressions,an impatiencewith verifiabledata, and a
will to acceptfeelingratherthanfactas a guide to the truthof selfhood.
Wordsworth's"philosophic" Prelude is to be read as an act of self-
creation:"The selfhe set out to discoverphilosophically,he ended up
realizingpoetically;it could not be abstractedfromthe words which
are its cause and adequate symbol."De Quincey is found relyingeven
more heavilyon subjectiveinventionuntil at last he is "dreaminghis
autobiography."Finally,withSartorResartus"the absoluteself,the 'di-
vine ME,' forwhich the autobiographyhas been imaginativelyseeking
lies in the autobiographyitself,createdin the act of searchingforit."
(Spengemanndoes not reckonwithCarlyle'sironies,whichsurelydilute
any autobiographicalintentionin the book of Teufelsdrockh'sClothes-
philosophy.)
Sartor preparesthe ground for a considerationof David Copper-
fieldand The ScarletLetter. But we must not expect any referenceto
the patentlyautobiographicalelementsin either novel, to Dickens's
fragmentary self-historyon which the Murdstone-and-Grinby episode
is based, or to the introductionin which Hawthornedescribeshis em-
ploymentin the Salem Custom-House,for traditionalautobiography
involvingactual fact now counts for nothing.David Copperfield,as
Spengemannreads it, "is autobiographicalonly to the extent that it
expressesthroughthe deploymentof conventionalnarrativepersonae
and throughthe allegorical tenorof its language Dickens's over-riding

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Reviews 81
concernwith tlherealizationof his self,the achievementof truebeing."
it seemsto me impossibleto
But if the novel is entirelyself-referential,
know fromany intrinsicevidence what may or may not be Dickens's
overridingconcernsoutside the text.Spengemanndoes, of course,im-
port knowledgeof the novelist'sextraliterary life. Ignoringthe humor
with which Mr. Dick is presented,he contendsthat Dickens's "view of
himselfas the authorof David Copperfieldshinesthroughthe translu-
cent fictiveallegory"of the madman and his kites and obsessionwith
the beheaded Charles.As autobiography,he argues,only the firstfour-
teen chaptersof the novel are valid; the vital self-creation is over as
soon as David, arrivingat Aunt Betsey's,confrontsMr. Dick, and the
past and presentselvesof the novelistforonce come together.Chapter
15, he insists,brings an unfortunatecleavage in the narrative,and
thereis no relationhenceforthbetweenthe earlysuffering child David
and the happier, blander new David. Yet, to credithis argumentwe
are asked to believe that the youngman falls easy prey to Steerforth,
wvhereas the child was "far too worldly-wise" not to see throughhim.
But it seemsto me clear enoughthatSteerforth as thegood-badByronic
hero inspiresfrombeginningto end an intenseloyaltymingledwith a
suspicion and mistrust,which both Davids are reluctant to admit.
Spengemannoffersus a stimulatingand oftenbrilliantcritique of the
firstquarter of David Copperfieldbut then is ready to discount and
possiblydistortthe bulk of the novel whichresistshis mode of analysis.
As autobiographyhe finds The Scarlet Letter more consistently
satisfactory, since it achieves"throughfictivemetaphors"the finalheal-
ing of a divided self.Hawthorne,unable to discoverhis true identity
in life,is seen settinghis characters"to work out, throughthe 'dark
necessity'of theirown fictivelogic,theirtruerelationshipsto each other
and, in so doing,to tell him who he was." The novel is to be valued as
"a book about its own origins,processes,and consequences"and as a
persuasivetestimonythat "fictionis theonly trueautobiography."Such
an appraisal presupposesthat Hawthornedid indeed learn who he was
by tracingtheallegoricaladventuresof an uncertainselfas apportioned
to Dimmesdale,Chillingworth,and Hester. Otherwise,the term"auto-
biography,"already stretchedto the breakingpoint, loses its last hold
on intelligiblemeaning.
SpengemannregardsThe ScarletLetter as a definitivedemonstra-
tion that "no substantialself or soul" existsapart fromindividual ex-
perienceor is to be apprehendedexceptin individual activity.He con-
cludes,with evidentapproval: "Withouta self,one cannotwriteabout
it, but whateverone writeswill be about the self it constructs.Auto-
biographythusbecomessynonymous with symbolicaction in any form,
and the word ceases to designatea particularkind of writing."We are
now not far fromthe position of Michel Butor,as paraphrasedin the
copious notes,that "there no longer seems to be anythingthat either
is or is not autobiography."If such is thecase, the "forms"Spengemann

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82 Fiction
Nineteenth-Century
set out to describe,providedthat theyexist at all, have become amor-
phous, protean,and innumerable,and the genrehas virtuallyeffected
its own destruction.
In his sensibleand well-informed surveyintroducng Approaches
to VictorianAutobiography,George P. Landow is dearly troubledby
the problemof definitionand the indiscriminateextensionof the term,
whichhe himselfwould preferto limitto a retrospectinvolvinga more
or less sustainedcontrastbetweenthe writer'spresentsense of self and
his past consciousness.Most of his fourteencontributors do retainsome
respectforthe traditionalconstituents of the genre.But a few,drawing
largelyon the Frenchstructuralists and linguistictheorists,accept any
sortof self-representationas autobiography.And one of these,Michael
Ryan, acknowledginghis debt to Jacques Derrida, contendsthat "all
autobiographyinevitablydeconstructsits own suppositions"by effect-
ing "a deconstruction of the categoryof the self."
For presentpurposeswe'need consideronly the essaysin the Lan-
dow volume that attemptto correlateautobiographyand prose fiction.
PhyllisGrosskurthclaims that,thoughwe mayrightly"demand factual
accuracy"of any autobiography,the most satisfyingexamples of the
genregive us the illusion we expectof a good novel; and she is inclined
to agree to the suggestionthat "Rousseau's Confessionsmay indeed be
the best French novel of the eighteenthcentury."Howard Helsinger
findseven the scientificDarwin, when he writesof an incomparable
domesticbliss,imitatingthe language of romanticfiction,and he sees
the selfpresentedin Edmund Gosse'sFatherand Son as a sortof novel-
istic invention.Mutlu Konuk Blasing assumes a complete equation:
Henry James's prefaces,she tells us, "are autobiographicaland thus
necessarilyfictional."In the prefaces,says Blasing, Jamesbecomes his
own "literarycreation": he achieves "a fictionalexistence" in retro-
spectswhich, scatteredthroughthe New York Edition, discovercon-
tinuitiesand causal relationshipsneverto be discernedin his actual life.
Two of Landow's essayists,AvromFleishmanand Robert L. Pat-
ten, discussnovels generallyknown to be autobiographical.Fleishman
suggeststhat the autobiographer,whetherwritingfictionor not, fre-
quentlyresortsto a centralmythor metaphoras a means of organizing
the details of his experience.In the dominantlynegative The Way of
All Flesh he detectsmore than Butler himselfhinted we mightfind,
somethingdisturbinglypositive,a mysteriouscult of the sun, for Er-
nest'sgreatgrandfather Johnshortlybeforehis death salutesthe sunset,
and Ernestyearslater,leavingschool in disgrace,laughsconspiratorially
into the sunshine.Yet I should wonder whethertwo ratherdifferent
referencesto the sun in a long novel really constitutean organizing
mythor reveal Butler as a secret"sun-child."We need, I should think,
look onlyto Butler'sactual careerto discoversourcesof the themesand
imagery-revoltfromparentaltyranny, love of paradox, quirkyevolu-
tionarytheory,worshipfulregard for money-that helped shape and
unifyhis self-revealing novel.

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 Reviews 83
Patten'sanalysisof David Copperfieldmakes a usefulcomplement
and sometimes correctiveto Spengemann's. Now the child David,
thoughdrawn in part frommemoriesof the author's boyhood,is the
reversenot so much of the grownDavid as of the adult Dickens. David
as narratormakeslhimself a hero in the processof tellingand ordering
his life story;David the writer,with whom Dickens at many points
wishesto identify,"becomesadequate throughfictionsof his adequacy."
Dickens throughDavid transcends"apocalypse,"the horrorof human
experience,worksout a meaningfulpattern,and so createsa coherent
world of his own desiring.But the finishednarrative,as Patten seems
to suggestand as we should all insist,is surelyno "fiction"to David the
narrator,who quite properlydaims a power of close observationand a
respectforhard fact.Whateverits subjectiveorigins,David Copperfield
is finallyto be appraised as David's true autobiography,and not as
Dickens's. And, if we understandit as such, we can returnto a more
reasonabledefinitionof the termand the genre and perhaps also to a
sense of what novel-readershave alwaysproperlyaccepted as the truth
of fiction.
JEROME H. BucKLEY
Harvard University

EMORYELLIOTT, ed., Puritan Influencesin American Literature.Illi-

nois Studies in Language and Literature,65. Urbana, Chicago, Lon-
don: Universityof Illinois Press,1979. Pp. xx + 212. $12.00.

CHARLES BERRYMAN, From Wildernessto Wasteland: The Trial of the

Puritan God in the AmericanImagination. LiteraryCriticismSeries.
Port Washington,N.Y., and London: Kennikat Press, 1979. Pp. ix +
214. $15.00. ?12.75.

To judge fromthe two volumesunder review,the question of the

Puritan originsof nineteenth-century Americanliteraturecontinuesto
jog the pens of intellectualand literaryhistorians.As Emory Elliott
notes in his introductionto Puritan Influencesin AmericanLiterature
(a collectionofessaysdedicatedto EdwardH. Davidson of theUniversity
of Illinois by his formerstudents),the revolutionin AmericanPuritan
studies has issued in a new appreciation of the complexitiesof the
Puritan legacy.The heroic labors of PerryMiller, and more recently,
the workof Sacvan Bercovitch,Michael Colacurcio (who contributesa
veryimportantessayon JonathanEdwards in Puritan Influences),and
Michael T. Gilmore,among others,have revealedthe persistenceof the
Puritan habit of imaginationthroughthe nineteenthcenturyand be-
yond. We have come to view our major authors' meditationson the
meaning of America and theirappropriationof the jeremiad mode-
"a rhetoricof denunciationand recommitment," in Elliott'sphrase (p.
xiv)-as evidenceof the impact of colonial Puritanism,fromboth for-

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