Pearce, Howard D.

More than has been previously recognized, Harold Pinter's Weltanschauung is comprehensively existential. Classical absolutes, Medieval spirituality and Renaissance harmony are untenable in his drama. Rational logic and Naturalistic fate are antithetic to his philosophy. Pinter's dramatic aesthetic. has been directed by his existential ethic. In his drama , Pinter recreates the negative conditions of modern life by posing problems based upon existential ontology, axiology, epistemology, communication, and destiny; however, he resolves these dilemmas with positive existential solutions by which man may rediscover his existence in an insecure modern world.

Wallace Stevens sought to remove the false image of God in
order to find truth and reality. His various attempts to
dispel the myth of religion can be traced through his poetry
and correspondence. His poetry can be divided into five
phases, each illustrating Stevens's changing attitude toward
God. In phase I Stevens employed simple substitution,
replacing the image of the supreme with common objects. In
phase II he looked for ''the god within man" while increasing
his efforts to remove the illusion of God. Phase III was
one of transition, where Stevens rejected former theories
and sought a new direction to follow. In phase IV he
concentrated on exposing the myths and defining reality. At
the end of this phase, he reviewed his progress and found
himself no nearer to his goal. Stevens lacked focus in
phase V due to this disappointment; he died before settling
on a new theory.

A detailed analysis of Wallace Stevens's poetics reveals
close parallels with Aristotle's theory of mimesis.
These parallels are most notable in regard to the definition
of mimesis as it pertains to poetry, language,
nature, reality, and imagination. An exploration of these
parallels firmly establishes Stevens as an Aristotelian,
and therefore provides an important aid in understanding
his use of poetic devices such as diction, metaphor, and
persona.

Wallace Stevens's poems alluding to hands yield one of his most profound topics of interest: reality (the external, natural world) versus the imagination (the internal mind). The human hand offers a unique perspective of the complex, often problematic worlds in which the artist exists. In terms of the external world, the hands are the most common means of sense experience. For many artists, the hands act as a medium through which expression of art is delivered. During inspiration, an artist therefore takes an experience of the world, filters it through the imagination, and then creates art by combining mind and sense experience. It is the complications involved in this process of creation that the forthcoming analysis explores. The philosophical insight of Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Husserl, and William James offers ways of interpreting the intricate creative process apparent in Stevens's poems. By visualizing the necessary altered state of perception through Stevens's language, one can then better understand the acquisition of the ideal state, or "phenomenal body."

The word "anomaly" in The Portrait of a Lady forms a nexus of meanings derived from its denotative and connotative meanings. This complex of meaning bring in focus phenomenological aspects of character, action, and style translating into larger thematic concepts to create a level of understanding deepening the experience of the novel. Isabel Archer is examined for her anomalous portrayal of a modern character whose complexity emerges as a dynamic of the anomalous and the vulgar that are distinguishable but ultimately inseparable. Using a phenomenological approach, the word "anomaly," as recurring descriptive term, can be studied in its juxtaposition to other words, such as vulgarity, providing additional insight into characterization and action in Portrait of a Lady.

In "Esthetique du Mal," one of his later poems, Wallace Stevens considers existence from a variety of critical and philosophical perspectives, among them various moral, aesthetic, political, theological, and philosophic "epistemes" that condition how humanity perceives and experiences the world. These epistemological "modes" dictate how we live and perceive the world about us, providing preconceptions that shroud understanding and obfuscate ontological explanation. What Stevens accomplishes in "Esthetique du Mal" is to create a dialogue with various historical and philosophical "schools," systematically confronting and rejecting their perspectives, and creating a movement toward Martin Heidegger's "aletheia" to uncover the ontological substructure that exists beneath the individual's experience in the world. This movement of "uncovering" and exposing the nature of what it means "to be in the world" is a journey to an ontological substructure that allows Stevens to arrive at a dynamic, ontological proof: that existence is full of "reverberating" possibilities, not solitary and "univocal" statements.

In Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker places women in the traditionally male role of hero. As an artist, her goal is to provide stories with role models who will help women transcend the gender stereotyping inherent in patriarchal cultures and enable them to envision themselves as capable of completing the stages of the hero's journey. The novels are compared to the three stages of the hero's journey as it is defined by Joseph Campbell to demonstrate how the women successfully master the hero pattern. The simple act of replacing the mythical male hero with a female initiates the shift in consciousness or the "key archetypal" event that Campbell insists is necessary for a change in world ideology. By redefining the role of the hero, Walker changes society's perceptions about women and becomes the arbiter of myth that will encourage women's potential.

The titles of Wallace Stevens's poetry assist in an explication of the poems. Stevens's titling techniques force the reader into a complicit involvement with the text before the commitment to read is even made. By asserting a strong presence in his titles, Stevens is able to engage the reader in an exploration of what is possible for the imagination. He presents his poetry as a foil for the actualization of his audience. Potentials are experienced and made real by this active involvement with the poems, which in turn permits them to reveal their hidden meanings. A recursive responsiveness to Stevens's titles during the enjoyment of his poems rewards the reader with some answers to Wallace Stevens's masterful mystery. His management of titles is a part of the syntactical expression that is central to a full experience of his poetry.

Henry James's and Plato's presumed ideological incompatibility is fostered in part by the philosopher's well documented censure of literature and the arts and by his belief that true knowledge is secured by purely rational apprehension. Henry James, however, contends that the philosopher and novelist have comparable concerns, for both seek truth and the origins and meaning of virtue. Plato's conception of knowledge and ethics, however, differs markedly from James's: if true knowledge is commensurate with rational apprehension, emotions and imagination distort rather than elucidate truth. Yet is there but a single path to knowledge? In What Maisie Knew James illustrates that learning, like narrative, is an experiential process involving intuition, emotion, and imagination. Moreover, although Jamesian and Platonic thought may appear antithetical, a comprehensive study of their works reveals not only the expected differences, but certain unexpected discursive and ideological similarities.

Henry James's In the Cage offers a character, a young female telegraphist, who constantly applies theories to and comes up with interpretations of the people, objects, and events that make up the world outside her cage. The experiences she undergoes with the telegrams' ambiguous messages and her customers' strange actions compel her to weave an intricate drama that not only clears up the ambiguities but also allows her to play an important role. She creates a subjective reality through which she can embark on an exciting, dangerous adventure. This reality, however, is not immutable. When faced with new sets of circumstances, new flashes from the outside world, she struggles to re-work her interpretations and re-create her fiction; like Odysseus, she is forced to submit to an overwhelming external power and find a new path on which to travel.