Laurel and Thorn: the Athlete in American Literature
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge Literature in English, North America English Language and Literature 1981 Laurel and Thorn: The Athlete in American Literature Robert J. Higgs East Tennessee State University Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Higgs, Robert J., "Laurel and Thorn: The Athlete in American Literature" (1981). Literature in English, North America. 25. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_north_america/25 Laurel & Thorn This page intentionally left blank Laurel & Thorn The Athlete in American Literature Robert J. Higgs THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY For Reny, Julie, and Laura Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Higgs, Robert J., 1932- Laurel & thorn : the athlete in American literature. Includes bibliographical references. Includes index. 1. American literature-History and criticism. 2. Athletes in literature. 3. Sports stories- History and criticism. I. Title. II. Title: Laurel and thorn. PSI73.A85H5 810'.9'355 80-51014 AACR2 The publication of this book received financial support from the University of Tennessee Better English Fund, established by John C. Hodges. ISBN: 978-0-8131-5248-6 Copyright © 1981 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40506 Contents Preface vu 1. Game Plan 1 2. Apollo 22 3. Dionysus 91 4. Adonis 119 5. The Wrap-up 178 Notes 183 Index 191 This page intentionally left blank Preface FROM Christmas day 1621, when William Bradford ad monished young men for playing in the streets of Plymouth, to this year's Super Bowl Sunday, sports in America have been almost completely transformed. Increased leisure time and technology have wrought changes in our attitudes toward sports (and toward ourselves) that the old Puritans could not have imagined. Among the technological innovations, none has had so profound an influence upon sports as television. Indeed its impact has been so great that its long-range effects upon sports and all society cannot even yet be envisioned. In its relentlessness television is like reality. Game shows grind on and on through out the week, athletic competition dominates the weekend, and morning and evening sports reports keep us up to date on the latest scores and trade transactions. Television has helped to make sports as ubiquitous as the weather and as important as the news of catastrophe, war, and politics. Where once men, or at least some men, engaged in matins and vespers, today we begin and end our day by listening to the news, sports, and weather-a new sort of trinity. Television is a marvel, even a miracle. It can do much, but it is not all-powerful. It can show us the action of sports and provide instant replay with commentary. It can capture the beauty of sport, the skill of the athlete, and the enthusiasm of the fan. It can tell us more accurately how the game was played than we could discover if we ourselves were there. It can bring the drama and genuine excitement of the world's best competition right into our living rooms. Television cannot, however, reveal to us the meaning of what we watch. The primary purpose of televi sion is not to mirror a game for better understanding of it but to extend it to a larger audience. Admittedly, television can (and Vlll PREFACE does) provide different points of view, that is, different angles of the camera, but camera angles are not interpretations. Televi sion is not an art but a medium, and the medium is not always the message. Television has other limitations. It cannot tell us everything about the social and cultural significance of the athlete hero whose deeds it records in minutest details at the time of occur rence. Television can evaluate the deed but falls far short in its potential for evaluation of the person who performed it. For a more complete picture of the individual we must still turn to the written word, to the sporting press to be sure, but also to literary art. On a television screen all players look alike, excepting num bers and colors of uniforms, but literature takes us behind the scenes and provides comparison and contrast of players so that the best among them can be identified. Television will show us who is the strongest and fastest on the field, but it cannot locate other qualities we look for in the strong of arm and fleet of foot. Television thus provides only part of the story; for the rest we look either to the sports pages or to the literature of sports. The sportswriter, like the television camera, can also tell us much. but he too is limited, not by his intelligence, knowledge, or skill, but by the mode of writing and the extent of coverage. For the most part, the sportswriter reports; or if he does interpret, his interpretation usually does not extend beyond the boundaries of the playing field. It is true that in the last few years a number of sportswriters have looked at the role of sports in society with a rather critical eye, but they form the exceptions rather than the rule. By and large, the sporting press is no more critical of what it surveys than is the television industry. For the most com prehensive and pluralistic view of the athlete, at least of his life off the field, literature is still the champion. This is not to say that the literature tells the whole story either, but it does remind us of some important points-that winning is not the only thing, that victory on the playing field may often be gained at a cost far too high for the general good of society. This work therefore deals with literature, but it is not by any means a traditional literary study. It does not undertake to assess the authors aesthetically, to examine form and content; rather the approach is cultural. The concern here is not primarily with PREFACE IX how well the author has done his job, how artistic a product he has created in the athletic hero, but with the view he takes of this figure and his milieu. As a popular hero, the athlete has an thropological and mythological importance, and the values he represents are quite indicative of the tastes, attainments, beliefs, and ideals of his society. Whenever the athlete has prospered previously, notably in ancient Greece and Victorian England, he has figured prominently in the literature of his time. The same is true today, and this work is nothing more or less than an attempt to show how the athlete has fared in modern American literary art, not as an artistic creation, but as a symbol, in the eyes of the authors, of American culture. Explanations of a number of limitations are necessary. I have excluded more popular literature (subliterature often) and juvenile fiction in which the athlete remains a hero a Ia Frank Merriwell and the Rover boys, nor have I considered the boy athlete of serious fiction who is not a full-fledged hero. The criteria for selection of authors and works were that the author have literary or social significance and that the work treat of the athlete in some significant way. Many of the authors are univer sally recognized as our best, but I do not wish to imply that there is not other good fiction about the athlete by writers not in cluded. Indeed to discover what all American writers of con sequence have had to say would be quite unnecessary for the purposes here. I am convinced that I have uniformly chosen a sufficient number of major authors to prove my thesis. I should also point out that I do not presume to discuss all the athletes of the authors selected but only those I feel best reflect their atti tudes toward the athlete. Almost invariably these athletes are the authors' most famous: Busher Keefe in Ring Lardner, Robert Cohn in Ernest Hemingway, Tom Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jim Randolph and Nebraska Crane in Thomas Wolfe, Labove in William Faulkner, Tom Stark in Robert Penn Warren, Biff Loman in Arthur Miller, and Brick Pollit in Ten nessee Williams, to name a few. Though I have attempted briefly to trace some influences and ideals back to their origins in the ancient world, the time covered by this study is essentially the first three quarters of the twentieth century, the period in which sports have flourished as never X PREFACE before in all history. Chronologically the first writer dealt with is Jack London; the last, Walker Percy. The intent, once again, has not been to treat as many authors as possible but to arrive at a composite view of the athlete in all his roles and manifestations. The main body of the study is devoted to particular types of athlete hero. Most of the terms are common in everyday use and in themselves carry some definition. When necessary, however, the definition is expanded to attempt to clarify the discussion. It has been necessary to limit the number of athletes illustrative of each type, and in doing so I have kept in mind an observation of Thoreau: "If you are acquainted with a principle, what do you care for a myriad of instances and applications?" How many boxers from London, Lardner, Hemingway, Farrell, and Schul berg might one include in a discussion on the bromide, beast, or natural? Several indeed, but to do so would overstate a point.