The topic of this paper is prompted by John S. Phillipson's assertion that Thomas Wolfe's travel writing "deserves to be better known." While his discussion in "Thomas Wolfe as a Writer on Travel" only mentions the author's letters, notebooks, and A Western Journal, I argue that Wolfe's use of travel provides the structural unity that ties his novels and short fiction together, and I show how the author's second novel, Of Time and The River, fits into and extends the American milieu of travel writing. To do so, my paper differs from traditional Wolfe scholarship in that I de-emphasize the role of authorial intention to focus instead on how his novel textually operates as a travel narrative, arguing that such elements as the coexistence of conflicting territorial dialects; the exploration of different cities, states, regions, and nations by characters; and the increased interest in foreign cultures illustrate the identity crises that American writers underwent during the first part of the twentieth century. At length, I try to introduce new ways of looking at Wolfe's fiction by fusing discourse analysis with the work of geographers and literary theorists interested in travel writing and landscape theory.
Ultimately, I argue that critics have been misreading Of Time and The River for the past sixty years. While most scholars concede that the book is a Kunstlerroman depicting Eugene Gant's development as an artist, I also maintain that the novel operates as a picaresque narrative where the beliefs and values of a young, Southern naif come into conflict with the ideals of the Northern U.S. and with the dominant artistic traditions of Europe. Like most picaresque fiction, Of Time and The River is a travel oriented book, both episodic in structure and satiric in aim. In the novel, Wolfe subverts both cultures by depicting the lack of democracy in Northern cities and by deflating the idealized notions of European art, challenging established hegemonic beliefs of cultural superiority. While the fictional characters of such Southern contemporaries as William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell rarely leave the confinement of their native geographical region, Wolfe uses travel in Of Time and The River to make sense of how the South culturally diverges from the Northern U.S. and Europe by bringing Eugene Gant into contact with a wide range of different people, experiences, and cultures. Wolfe's depiction of Americans traveling in Europe not only illustrates his attempt to reconcile post-colonial American culture with its colonial European legacy, but also shows his interest in employing cross-cultural creativity in his fiction.
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