Morris, Wright - Alan Trachtenberg (essay date 1961)

Alan Trachtenberg (essay date 1961)

SOURCE: “The Craft of Vision,” in Critique, Vol. 4, Winter, 1961, pp. 41-55.

[In the following essay, Trachtenberg argues that Morris's work as a photographer informed his technique as a writer.]

Again, the mind must think of itself, of the conditions of its existence (which are also conditions of growth), of the dangers menacing its virtues, its forces and its possessions, its liberty, its development, its depth.

—Paul Valery

The American literary inheritance has not been a comfortable one for modern writers. Often a burden with its preponderance of metaphysical themes, its shadowy people, and its eccentric styles, the native tradition has amounted to a free and robust language, and nothing more. For Wright Morris, however, that tradition is a good deal more than a down-to-earth sentence style. Morris has tried to make his literary past usable by inventing...

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