West, Paul (Vol. 7) - West, Paul 1930–
West, Paul 1930–
A novelist, critic, poet, teacher, essayist, and short story writer, West is an Englishman now living in America. He became known for the zany inventiveness of the Alley Jaggers novels; but it is Words for a Deaf Daughter that reveals his essential optimism. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 13-16, rev. ed.)
Like many of the rest of us, Mr. West has grown disenchanted with scholarship which suggests "a doctrinal putsch with a doctorate at the end of it." As opposed to what he calls the "sacerdotal methodologies" of some New and Myth criticism, he advocates [in The Wine of Absurdity] a more eclectic, private response. "Humanism," he frankly acknowledges a debt to Mr. Irving Babbitt, "is not a program or a scheme, but a way of living life deliberately." Countering "the stoniness of the world," we must admit "the incompleteness and unsatisfactoriness of our systems…." The chief weapon with which to...
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