Dec 24, 2009

The Ancient Child | Literary Precedents

Other than a few influences and faint traces, the novel overall, in many respects, is without precedence. Momaday's particular mode of language use and story-telling are experimental. It stems from the ancient traditions of oral storytelling, with its conventions of simple language and stock phrasing as well as from the contemporary influences of novelists such as Faulkner, Steinbeck and Lawrence who used the tools of setting and landscape, of image and language in their novels.

In the genre of Native American literature, it is unique in its drawing from a larger range of Western...