The Contemporary Encyclopedic Novel
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2014 The Contemporary Encyclopedic Novel Matthew Warren Raese University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Raese, Matthew Warren, "The Contemporary Encyclopedic Novel. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2723 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Matthew Warren Raese entitled "The Contemporary Encyclopedic Novel." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Amy J. Elias, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Allen R. Dunn, Tom Haddox, Stephen Blackwell Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) The Contemporary Encyclopedic Novel A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee Matthew Warren Raese May 2014 Dedicated to B.H. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all of my friends for their encouragement and support while I worked on this dissertation. I would like to direct special thanks my friends Teresa Saxton and Katie Burnett who worked with me to read draft after draft of my work and helped me to shape my work into something someone other than myself would understand. I am truly grateful and humbled by your unflagging dedication to my work. I would also like to thank those friends who listened to me talk through my ideas, particularly Alex Fitzner, Neil Norman, Todd Ridley, and Jim Civis. Special thanks also to John Dugos, Christopher Bowen, and Tito Ridley for their support. I would also like to thank my committee members Allen Dunn, Tom Haddox, and Stephen Blackwell for their insights and commentary on my work. Allen has been an inspiration to me throughout my years at UTK and I am grateful for his generosity in helping me through difficult texts and his mentorship when I was his editorial assistant at Soundings. Thanks also to Bill Hardwig for directing me to new criticism that helped to flesh out my ideas. This project would not have been possible without the extreme generosity, patience, and encouragement I received from Amy Elias. Amy has been a mainstay in my academic education and my professional development in every sense. She advised myself and Teresa Saxton, two fledgling graduate students, in putting together the graduate student conference NEXUS in 2006. I worked on her local organizing committee for the inaugural ASAP conference in Knoxville in 2009 that taught me what conference planning is really about. I value her honesty in and out of the classroom. iii I am indebted to my family for their faith in me and their upbeat optimism. My mother and father, my brother and sister, and many others encouraged me throughout the writing of this dissertation. You always reminded me of the light at the end of the tunnel and never doubted my ability. Although I never met her, I would also like to thank my grandmother for inspiring my love of literature and my desire to teach. I wish she could have seen this day. iv ABSTRACT This dissertation will define the contemporary American encyclopedic novel and the significant role that irony plays in shaping meaning. The dissertation constructs a model of the encyclopedic novel based upon the history of the encyclopedia – from Denis Diderot's Enlightenment influenced Encyclopédie – and Northrop Frye's conception of the encyclopedic form. It claims (1) that the contemporary encyclopedic novel continues in the cycle of modal progression toward mythic integration that Frye proposes in Anatomy of Criticism; and (2) that the encyclopedic novel utilizes different forms of irony to challenge authoritative discourse and elevate marginal discourse. The first chapter defines the encyclopedic novel by examining the history of the encyclopedia and existing criticism on the encyclopedic text in literature. It draws on theorists such as Denis Diderot and Richard Yeo to define an “encyclopedic project” that adopts a dialogic rhetorical style and seeks to democratize access to information. This chapter also defines the encyclopedic novel as a generic form that combines other forms into a unified whole and utilizes irony as a tool for integration. The second and third chapters form a thematic pairing that shows the self-reflexive progression of the encyclopedic novel from individualistic to humanistic focus. The second chapter argues that Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow is an “anarchistic encyclopedic novel” that promotes associational thinking – in the form of paranoia, open forms, and horizontal transmission of knowledge. Gravity's Rainbow adopts a disintegrative irony to empower the oppressed individual against industry-state collusion in the post-WWII era. The third chapter v argues that David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest seeks to reinvent irony as an integrative force and redirect Pynchon's individualistic anarchism toward an inclusive humanism. The fourth chapter demonstrates a break from both of the preceding chapter and argues that Leon Forrest's Divine Days adopts a syndetic model of composition that further works to incorporate forms and integrate irony. Using Northrop Frye's “interpenetration,” I argue that Divine Days integrates competing traditions and discourses by demonstrating their mutual- necessity. In the concluding chapter, I examine “meta-encyclopedic” by Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Bolaño as an extension of the dissertation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction ..........................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: The Encyclopedic novel .......................................................................................9 2.1 The Encyclopedia .............................................................................................................9 2.2 The Encyclopedic Novel ..................................................................................................17 2.3 The Problem of Irony .......................................................................................................41 2.4 The Contemporary Encyclopedic Novel ..........................................................................49 Chapter 3: Gravity's Rainbow: The Anarchistic Encyclopedia ..............................................63 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................63 3.2 The Anarchistic Encyclopedia .........................................................................................65 3.3 Encyclopedic Logic: Systematic Logic vs. Associational Thinking ................................81 3.4 Encyclopedic Politics: Closed (Totalized) Systems vs. Open Forms ..............................98 3.5 Encyclopedic Pedagogy: Vertical vs. Horizontal Knowledge Transmission ...................123 3.6 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................130 Chapter 4: Infinite Jest: The Rhetorical Encyclopedia ..........................................................132 4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................132 4.2 Infinite Jest in the Encyclopedic Tradition ......................................................................138 4.3 Infinite Jest updates Pynchon's Encyclopedic Form ........................................................152 4.4 Integrative Irony...............................................................................................................163 4.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................184 Chapter 5: Divine Days: The Interpenetrative Encyclopedia.................................................187 5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................187 5.2 Integrating Competing Traditions ....................................................................................193 5.3 Signifying Ironic Integration............................................................................................214 5.4 Conclusion: Double Vision and Double Consciousness ..................................................220 Chapter 6: Conclusion: The Meta-Encyclopedic Text ...........................................................224 6.1 The Meta-Encyclopedic Text ...........................................................................................224 6.2 Meta-Encyclopedic Form.................................................................................................226