SOURCE: Christensen, Inger. “John Barth's Metafictional Redemption.” In The Meaning of Metafiction: A Critical Study of Selected Novels by Sterne, Nabokov, Barth, and Beckett, pp. 57-79. Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1981.

[In the following essay, Christensen provides a thematic and stylistic analysis of John Barth's metafictional novels The Sot-Weed Factor and Giles Goat-Boy.]

One of the stories in John Barth's fifth book Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is called “Petition”. It is written in the form of a letter to the King of Siam from a man who is a Siamese twin. The petitioner implores the King's help to be parted from his twin brother. His stomach is fastened to his brother's back, and the reason he wants to be separated from his brother is that their personalities differ totally despite the physical union.

His brother is an extrovert who takes care of the public side of life, earns and spends the money, tends the housework, pursues the women; but he has no feeling for art, or the spiritual side of life, and pays no attention to the wishes of his brother. He has to be a witness and silent participant in whatever his brother undertakes, in his getting drunk, in his adventures with women.

The twin writing the petition is himself somewhat of a teetotaller and shy with women, and he describes himself as a dreamer, a thinker, an observer of life. What is making matters worse is the fact that they now have fallen in love with the same woman, Thalia. It has become unbearable to be present at his brother's sexual excesses with the very woman he himself wants to hold chaste conversations with. Then, the petition-writing twin envisions a life on the stage, dedicated to art, for the three of them. The other brother tries to persuade Thalia to go off with him alone to live in a cottage in the country.

This story may serve as an illustration both of the theme Barth is mostly concerned with and his methods of expression. Barth uses the Siamese twins, who at the same time are two different people, but united in one person, as a metaphor of the poet's situation. The story deals with the theme of the artist's split personality. One part of his psyche is active and extrovert and wants to partake in life: it is a life-directed urge. At the same time the poet is a dreamer, a brooder who keeps life at a distance the better to understand and describe it. This other part of his personality is dedicated to art, and represents in a way a drive towards death.

Barth's technique and way of expressing the story afford ample illustrations of his humour and his pungent sexual world, and it contains an example of the typical Barthian triangle of two men and a woman. Barth draws frequently on sexual symbolism to illuminate his theme and in the case of “Petition” the author's meaning is further emphasized when the woman the twins pay court to is named “Thalia”, which is the name of the Muse of comedy and pastoral poetry.

The theme of the two strains in the artist's psyche or the conflict between art and life may be traced in most of Barth's works and seems to constitute Barth's own dilemma as a novelist. In an interview the author has called attention to the continuity of his work: “More than many writers when I am thinking of what to do next, I do it in terms of what I have done before.”

However, Barth at the same time points to the changes in his art, and in another interview he has offered a division of his work “into sets of twos”. Barth describes his two first novels, The Floating Opera (1956) and The End of the Road (1958), as “relatively realistic” while The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) and Giles Goat-Boy; or The Revised New Syllabus (1966) he finds “relatively fantastical or irrealistical”. His most recent works to date, Lost in the Funhouse (1968) and Chimera (1972), are collections of related short stories.

The theme of the artist's divided psyche finds different treatment in the various works. When Barth considers his two first books to be “relatively realistic”, this may be partly due to the contemporary setting of mid-20th century Maryland. In The Floating Opera the protagonist, Todd Andrews, appears as a psychologically developed character while in Barth's subsequent books, with the possible exception of The End of the Road, there are no attempts at realistic portrayal of the characters, who are meant to be seen as types. The two strains of the artist's psyche are embodied within Todd Andrews, whose apparently existential struggle in fact expresses the artist's difficulties in finding a balance between involvement and detachment in his relation to the objective world.

In The End of the Road the two aspects of the artist's personality are projected into separate characters: Joe Morgan is the physically active, the extrovert who stamps his image on the world, preferring to walk where it pleases him and symbolically making his own paths across the lawn. Jacob Horner has a completely different approach to the world, which overwhelms him with its complexity and freezes him into mental and physical immobility. Horner finds a temporary solution in articulation or art: “To turn experience into speech … is always a betrayal of experience … but only so betrayed can it be dealt with at all …”

The pair of Joe and Jacob in The End of the Road has a parallel in Ebenezer Cooke and Henry Burlingame in The Sot-Weed Factor. They both suffer from “cosmopsis”, Jacob Horner's existential disease, which deprives man of any ability to act and move. While Eben, the idealist, at first reacts with introversion and detachment, Henry stamps his own image on the world. A similar couple appears in Giles Goat-Boy with the idealistic would-be hero George Giles and the pragmatic “swindler” Harold Bray. This pairing also occurs in some of the stories of Lost in the Funhouse, for instance the title story and “Petition”, while this motif is not so predominant in Chimera.

Barth's method of presentation changes considerably with The Sot-Weed Factor, which leaves the contemporary scene for 18th century England and America; and still more so with Giles Goat-Boy, with its fantastic setting. Barth says about these two books that they are “novels which imitate the form of the Novel, by an author who imitates the role of Author”. With these works Barth abandons any attempt at creating “realistic” fiction, and the metafictional quality of the books is more prominent. An even more deliberate distortion of reality takes place in Lost in the Funhouse and Chimera, with their fabulous, surrealistic setting.

The following discussion will concentrate on John Barth's longest novels, The Sot-Weed Factor, and Giles Goat-Boy. They occupy a middle position, in several respects, especially with regard to their form, as they are wedged between the “relatively realistic” first novels and his surrealistic last works. Barth produces from his very first book a self-conscious kind of fiction that deals with the artist's or writer's situation, first and foremost the relationship between art and reality and the poet's difficulties of communication.

THE SOT-WEED FACTOR

1. THE POET AS SAVIOUR

Very few critics regard The Sot-Weed Factor as a work of metafiction. Tony Tanner points out that in The Sot-Weed Factor he finds that “What Burlingame does in the book, Barth does with the book” and that the characters' problems of identity correspond to the author's problems of form. However, Tanner does not develop this idea in the relatively limited space he devotes to the novel. McConnell also recognizes the metafictional quality of the novel when he states that it is “not so much a book about history or historical characters as about the nature of storytelling …” Like Tanner, McConnell does not elaborate this point to any extent.

Barth has chosen the omniscient, third person point of view for The Sot-Weed Factor. The story is told from the first person point of view in Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Nabokov's Ada, Beckett's trilogy, and in the novel to be discussed next, Giles Goat-Boy. The first parts of these analyses concerned the narrator, his role and his conception of himself as presented in the novels. In The Sot-Weed Factor there is no self-conscious narrator, but there is the protagonist, Ebenezer Cooke, extremely conscious of his role as Poet Laureate of Maryland. The whole novel may be regarded as a process of self-discovery and self-realization for Eben as a man and as a poet. Instead of exploring the narrator's situation, Barth examines that of the poet-protagonist.

In addition, Barth clearly indicates a relation both between himself as the real author of the novel and its protagonist, Ebenezer Cooke, and between the so-called “Author” of Part IV and Eben. John Barth has entitled his novel The Sot-Weed Factor and presents in his book a poet, Ebenezer Cooke, who shares his name with the historical author of a long narrative poem with the same title. The plot of the novel follows largely that of the poem.

The parallelism between the author's role and the protagonist is further emphasized in Part IV whose title reads: “THE AUTHOR APOLOGIZES TO HIS READERS; THE LAUREATE COMPOSES HIS EPITAPH.” The “Author” admits that when dealing with Captain John Smith in The Sot-Weed Factor, he has taken certain liberties with Clio, the Muse of history. In the novel Eben's relation with Joan is of major importance. She releases the poet in him and after their first meeting he is inspired to write a love poem. A parallel exists between Eben's relationship to Joan and that of the “Author” to his Muse. The “Author” acknowledges that “Clio was already a scarred and craftly trollop when the Author found her” (p. 743), and so is Joan Toast when Eben first meets her.

The epitaph Eben has written for himself is presented almost at the end of the novel and stands as a final inscription not only for the protagonist Ebenezer Cooke, but for the novel itself. The two first lines run: “Here moulds a posing, foppish Actor/Author of THE SOT-WEED FACTOR” (p. 755). The title may refer both to Ebenezer Cooke's poem and to the novel, and when this is made ambiguous, the identity of the “Author” of the novel and the protagonist, Eben, blur.

Eben has been mentioned as the protagonist of The Sot-Weed Factor, the character with whom the “Author” identifies and through whom he expresses his concerns with his role. Henry Burlingame has been given nearly equal importance, and Henry and Eben represent two aspects of the Poet's personality or two kinds of poets.

In the novel Benjamin Bragg, the bookseller, wants to know what kind of poet Eben is, the better to accommodate him in his choice of notebook:

would you have 'em think you a man … in love with the world? A Geoffrey Chaucer? A Will Shakespeare? Or … a Stoical fellow, that … hath his eye fixed always on the Everlasting Beauties of the Spirit: a Plato, I mean, or a Don John Donne?

(p. 109)

Eben does not know; he feels himself as “much a Stoic as an Epicurean” (p. 109). Eben has, though, great affinities with “a Plato” at this stage.

Eben's uncertainty about what role he should play as a poet, reflects his confused views about existence in general. In his discussion with Bertrand about gambling he brings his servant to the point of distraction by asserting on the one hand: “the gambler is a pessimistic atheist … To wager is to allow the sovereignty of chance in all events, which is as much as to say, God hath no hand in things.” And in the next breath Eben holds: “Who says Yea to Luck, in short, had as well say Yea to God, and conversely” (p. 210). Eben here vacillates between a materialistic world view, and a belief in God which he eventually embraces.

What kind of poet you are depends to some extent upon your religious or philosophic outlook. Eben asserts later that “A poet is born, not made” (p. 381), thereby disclosing a belief in the poet's calling as something given him from a source outside himself. Henry Burlingame scoffs at this idea, particularly as he has himself, disguised as Lord Baltimore, appointed Eben Poet Laureate of Maryland before he had “penned a proper verse” (p. 381). Henry avows a mechanistic, materialistic outlook: “Here we sit upon a blind rock hurtling through a vacuum, racing to the grave … do we seek our soul, what we find is a piece of that same black Cosmos whence we sprang and through which we fall” (p. 345).

Eben and Henry are presented as illustrating contrasting types of poets or various aspects of the poet's psyche. This has its basis in different philosophies or ideas about what is behind existence. In the discussion of the narrative, this point will be considered more closely. Here I will first discuss Henry Burlingame, his outlook and attitudes and the roles he plays.

Eben says to Henry Burlingame: “Thou'rt a Virgil worth a better Dante” (p. 165). This reference suggests that Henry's moral outlook and standards belong to a pre-Christian world. Henry serves as a guide and mentor to Eben, but eventually the roles are reversed; Eben undergoes a development and becomes Henry's teacher.

Alan Holder shows how Burlingame is not concerned with questions of good or evil in the ferocious contest between warring parties in Maryland: His chief concern is action. Henry's sole aim, according to himself, is to match Coode's ceaseless energy in staging a plot. Holder further contends that this seems Barth's sole intention with his novel as well: The author's intention corresponds to that of Henry Burlingame. This discussion hopes to show that Burlingame stands for just one aspect of the poet's psyche, and that Barth has another aim with his novel than constructing a marvellous plot.

Henry is indeed “a plotting Coode” (p. 162). With his extraordinary mental abilities he has great understanding and also concern for the world: “he loves the world, and comprehends it at first glance … yet his love is flavored with contempt, from the selfsame cause, which leads him to make game of what he loves” (p. 415). Like his half-brother, Charley Mattassin, Henry has little reverence for God's creation; he despises it and wishes to manipulate it and to think up alternatives. Henry has not quite reached the stage of Charley, whose reaction to the world is expressed by a derisive laugh. Charley has given in to his “dark angel”, i.e. the belief that the world is meaningless, while Henry is still contending with this thought according to Ebenezer (p. 422).

Henry's plotting is presented as a consequence of his rootlessness and lack of values. Indeed to play puppet master and to manipulate his surroundings, becomes his credo in life. Existence has no value per se, only the act of creation has meaning:

One must needs make and seize his soul, and then cleave fast to't … one must choose his gods and devils on the run, quill his own name upon the universe and declare, ‘'Tis I, and the world stands suc-a-way!’ One must assert, assert, assert, or go screaming mad. What other course remains? ‘One other,’ Ebenezer said with a blush. ‘'Tis the one I flee …’

(p. 345)

Henry gives vent to a thought frequently expressed in Barth's work, for instance by Jacob Horner: “Articulation! There, by Joe, was my absolute.”

Eben indicates that the way he has chosen is another solution to the existential dilemma. His identity as Poet and Virgin, he feels, is bestowed upon him from above: “'Twas the choice made me” (p. 60). Eben is mostly concerned with the quality of his poetry, which, he finds, depends on a high moral standard. What he writes, has to him more significance than Henry's how; the process, the scheming itself has significance to Henry, who watches the result with a shrug.

It is made quite clear in the novel that Henry is an alternative to Eben as Poet Laureate. Henry at one time takes on that identity to mislead his enemies (p. 332). When he poses as Mitchell's son, Henry gives himself the mock title of Laureate: “He calls himself the Laureate of Lubricity, that he says means simple smut” (p. 314).

In this novel Barth uses sexual metaphors to express poetic creativity. When Henry is said to have “learnt old Mother English to her very privates” (p. 384), this refers not only to his kind of vocabulary but to his insatiable sexual appetite. And here again the contrast to Eben has to be stressed. When Eben takes pride in his virginity, which he considers a condition for his status as a poet, Henry sees himself as a lover of totality: “I am … the Cosmic Lover!” (p. 497).

Henry's incessant plotting has a parallel in his sexual vitality. While Eben nourishes a constant love for Joan Toast, Henry functions as a “Husband to all Creation” (p. 497). Burlingame's fierce sexual activity results from his lack of identity. He is constantly on the go, trying out various roles and relationships. Henry Burlingame figures at times both as Lord Baltimore and as his opponent John Coode. He plays with such dexterity that Eben for one is quite at a loss about Henry's true identity and his intentions. Henry reminds him: “your true and constant Burlingame lives only in your fancy, as doth the pointed order of the world. In fact you see a Heraclitean flux” (p. 330).

The question of Henry's identity is bound up with his procreative capability. He has to prove to his stern father, the Indian chief Chicamec, that he possesses this ability before he is accepted among the Indians and can plead the cause of civilization. The eggplant recipe gives the solution to Henry's dilemma, which is not impotency as has been alleged, but insufficiently developed genitalia. Henry's sexual activities know no retention: “I have sown my seed in men and women, in a dozen sorts of beasts, in … trees and … flowers” (p. 328). This is because he is excluded from normal intercourse with the woman he loves.

Eventually, after the discovery of the eggplant recipe, Henry fathers a child by Anna Cooke and is accepted by his father. When Henry Burlingame at last finds his identity, his endeavours take on a decisive course; he joins forces with Eben in rescuing Maryland from the chaos of racial wars. The story of Henry's sexuality expresses metaphorically the dilemma of the poet who without basic identity and belief cannot produce work of enduring quality.

Henry embodies the poet or narrator in his function of creating fictitious tales and characters. He possesses a resourceful imagination that never goes dry. But apart from his creativity, Henry is a void, he has no identity, no self. The emphasis is on the aspect of play and pastime, and consequently in the role of narrator or poet Henry figures as a mere entertainer whose work has no lasting value and no message.

Ebenezer Cooke represents an alternative to Henry Burlingame, in nearly every respect; for instance as regards the latter's philosophy, his plotting and his sexuality. Henry is a pessimistic atheist while Eben thinks his calling as a poet is given him from God, whose representative on earth is Lord Baltimore, Proprietary of Maryland. Thus he greatly approves of Father Smith's remark about God as “the Supremest Lord Proprietary of All” (p. 353). He has a firm belief in authority, order and justice.

Eben nourishes a clear conception of the poet's role. When Henry sees his task as that of an intriguing entertainer, Eben has a strong belief in the didactic function of the poet. Lord Baltimore has made him Poet Laureate that he may create a Maryland in song that will “lure the finest families of England to settle there; 'twould spur the inhabitants to industry and virtue, to keep the picture true as I paint it” (p. 76). Eben discovers that the Maryland of his imagination does not correspond at all to the Maryland of reality and he decides that instead of a panegyric, he will describe in detail the treatment he was given. His intention, however, with his poetry has not changed: “Thus might others be instructed by my loss” (p. 458). The poet should, according to Eben, teach and instruct mankind through his verse.

However, before Eben's appointment as Poet Laureate fills his life with a purpose, his existence is not unlike Henry Burlingame's. When they were children, Eben's and his sister Anna's favourite pastime was play-acting. They assumed the identities of various men and women and played wordgames. As a young man, Eben has great difficulties in choosing a career because every profession represents a possibility to him. He may easily imagine himself in the role of every man on earth: “He admired equally the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric” (p. 11). When Eben preserves his virginity it is due to a lack of commitment; “he was no person at all” (p. 45).

Eben's situation bears both affinity to and is different from Henry Burlingame's. At this point, Eben like Henry lacks identity and purpose, but whereas Henry commits himself versus life and acts out one role after the other, Eben's play takes place in his imagination. Eben and Henry as representatives of the poet are both assuming various roles, just as the poet will identify himself with the various characters he creates. But Eben's roles and his poetry in general spring solely from his imagination while Henry is steeped in life and it is difficult to see through the disguises he assumes.

Eben's conception of the poet's function undergoes a development in the course of the novel. He thinks that being a poet does not depend on your own choice; it is a God-inspired role, and at first he even asserts that the poet is like a god. He tells his servant: “But the mask of the valet masks a varlet, while the poet's masks a god!” (p. 214). And he goes on to explain how the poet acts as a seer and prophet who knows men's hearts and the springs of good and evil. The irony in this statement lies in the discrepancy between Eben's ideal of the poet and his deplorable situation at the time.

Eben likes to imagine himself in the role of a god. Early in his career, during his time as a clerk in the London office, Eben plays relentless providence to an ant which happens to cross his account book; he closes his eyes and shakes his ink-filled quill whenever the ant treads on certain numbers: “Although his role of Deus civi Natura precluded mercy, his sentiments were unequivocally on the side of the ant” (p. 43). The ant expires and Eben weeps, but he sticks to his role without interfering, even if he is hard put to it.

Also on another occasion Eben plays god. He describes to Bertrand, his valet, how he imagines the ideal state should be: “In my town … a poet shall be their god, and a poet their king, and poets all their councillors: 'twill be a poetocracy!” (pp. 285-6). This wishful thinking on the part of Eben is actually fulfilled when he saves a negro, “Drakepecker”, who forthwith worships him like a god and obeys his every command. But after this experience Eben finds that “godding it” is too hard work: “If we reach our golden cities, my own shall be republican, not theocratic, nor have I any wish to be its ruler. That much Drakepecker hath taught me” (p. 291). The poet as a remote god is a role that does not fit Eben, mostly because he cannot keep the proper distance from the world: as in the incident with the ant he becomes involved despite his original resolve.

The part Eben wishes to play as Poet Laureate, especially in the beginning, as discussed above, does not exactly correspond with his real role. Eben plays Adam to his sister's Eve when they are children and Henry, their tutor, enacts the third part of this Biblical triangle. When Eben forfeits his estate out of ignorance, Henry compares him to the fallen Adam turned out of Eden, but he tells Henry to his face: “If I am Adam, I am Eveless, and Adam Eveless is immortal and unfallen. … If knowledge be sin and death … there stands a Faustus of the flesh—a very Lucifer!” (pp. 402-3). Ebenezer, adhering to his state as “Poet and Virgin”, disparages the carnal aspect of existence which Henry represents. Eben considers worldly experience dangerous to the immortality he seeks through his poetry. The role of the poet is irreconcilable to secular experience and knowledge: To create the immortal works of the spirit needs a virgin poet, an Adam before the Fall.

However, Eben also holds another conception of his role as poet. He exclaims after receiving his commission as Poet Laureate to Maryland: “‘Sweet land! … Pregnant with song! Thy deliverer approacheth!’ There was a conceit worth saving, he reflected: the word deliverer, for instance, with its twin suggestions of midwife and savior” (p. 94). But it is not by means of the moralizing poetry that Eben plans to write that he will be able to “deliver” Maryland. The practical side of his role has more weight than Eben imagines. By actively engaging himself with the people and the affairs of Maryland, he becomes its “saviour”.

Eben is repeatedly referred to as a Christ figure. In the following, we will first consider some of the Christ parallels and then the symbolic function of Eben's relation to Joan Toast.

The last part of Eben's journey to his estate, Malden, has obvious parallels to the Passion. Christ was sent to the world as its redeemer; Eben goes to Malden as “redemptioner”, i.e. as an indentured servant on the same estate he has inherited from his father; he plans to “expiate … his folly by undoing the cooper William Smith” (p. 439). Further, like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. St. Matt. xxvi, 38) he feels “sick unto death” (p. 439) and he talks about his “final hours on earth” (p. 440). Lastly, Eben has himself agreed to be indentured instead of the scoundrel Tayloe: “Turn Tayloe free, and bond me in his stead” (p. 448). This refers to the biblical incident where Barabbas, the robber, is discharged instead of Jesus, who is sacrificed to save mankind.

The poet as saviour and redeemer of the world is allegorically represented by Ebenezer's relation to Joan Toast; it is pointed out that she is the “very sign and emblem” (p. 468) of the world from which Eben at first feels so aloof. What makes Eben a poet is not Lord Baltimore's commission; the title “Poet Laureate” only gives a certain purpose to Eben's poetry. It fills him with a distinct vocation, which is that of redeemer of the New World. But Joan is the one who makes Eben a poet. Before he met her, he tried to write poetry, “but abandoned the effort each time for want of anything to write about” (p. 28). After Joan has left him in his chambers, still a virgin, he feels brimful of inspiration and writes a love song. He boasts to his friends on this occasion that Joan has “played all innocently the midwife's part” (p. 95) in bringing forth the “fetus” of his true self, Poet and Virgin.

The Christ allegory is also used in connection with Joan. While Eben eventually behaves like a Christ figure in his relation to Joan, the opposite is the case with a Captain Mitchell, who appears in a story Joan/Susan relates about herself. Mr. Mitchell and his wife give Joan opium and she imagines herself to be “the bride o'Christ” (p. 305) and Mitchell, Christ himself. He kills the fetus he has fathered and is largely responsible for Joan's ruin. Obviously, Captain Mitchell figures as an “antichrist”, which Joan also calls him, while Eben is to be regarded as her true saviour. Thus at one point Joan/Susan says to Eben: “Christ! Christ! … Ye will refuse me” (p. 309).

Eben at last “saves” Joan restoring her self-respect, first by formally making her his wife and then by agreeing to their sexual union: “I shall sacrifice my essence to save your self-respect!” (p. 319). Eben, finally, fully accepts Joan, and he does indeed “redeem” her before the eyes of the world restoring Joan's, i.e. the world's, belief in herself and faith in life. A noble task for a poet.

The allegorical meaning of Eben's relation to Joan Toast becomes clearer when the role played by Eben's sister, Anna, is also taken into consideration. Eben's relation with these women demonstrates the two strains in the Barthian poet that we discussed earlier, a longing towards the world, on the one hand, and towards art on the other. Eben feels drawn both towards Anna and towards Joan.

Anna represents the spiritual side of existence, with whom Eben cultivates a Platonic relationship: This is Eben as “poet and virgin” with high ideas of his “calling”, but no real knowledge of his situation and possibilities. When, in the course of the story, Eben betrays Joan and flees from her, he remembers that he has first pledged himself to Anna. His first and only responsibility is to his art: “What business hath a poet with the business of the world? … I am a poet and no creature else; I shall feel conscience only for my art, and there's an end on't!” (p. 474).

However, Eben does not stick to his “manifesto”. His conscience overmasters him, and he takes full responsibility for Joan, seeing that he also has a share in her undoing. Joan's cause significantly fuses with that of civilization, metaphorically expressed by her possession of the eggplant recipe. Eben admits his guilt, both in relation to Joan's fate and in contributing to the general human misery, and he considers himself a representative of and spokesman for suffering humanity.

Another “credo” of the poet finds expression in Eben's words: “But 'tis not the English case I plead: 'tis the case of humankind, of Civilization versus the Abyss of salvagery” (p. 662). The word “versus” indicates that Eben speaks for the whole of mankind, both “civilization” and “salvagery”. This will be discussed later; suffice it here to stress the connection to Eben's relationship with his two women.

In the end he does not reject Joan and accept Anna, or, expressed in other words: he does not discard life for art. He manages to achieve a balance; Anna and Joan, art and life, do not stand in opposition; their various roles eventually blur. In a dream Eben sees the beautiful face of his sister Anna take on the features of Joan's face, which again changes into Anna's and so forth. This synthesis, for instance, is further indicated by the fact that both of the women bear a child; the child of Joan, the London whore, is born in wedlock while the child of the “spiritual” Anna is illegitimate.

Eben's great work in the novel, rescuing Maryland from civil war, demands that he engage himself with his entire personality. This calls for his compassion and his commitment, but then it is made clear that only a man of Eben's innocence and idealistic faith in his role could be fit for the task. Henry Burlingame, for instance, possesses the knowledge and love of the world plus the energy to act: all of these qualities Eben at first lacks. But Henry has no belief in his own value, nor in the value of anything else. In The Sot-Weed Factor, then, Barth seems to advocate a conception of the poet as redeemer and saviour, simultaneously pointing out that this means that the poet must find a balance between the two opposing strains of his personality.

2. RECONCILIATION THROUGH NARRATIVE

Henry Burlingame relates to Eben his experience with the two rivals, Henry More and Isaac Newton, during his time at Cambridge. The former is described as a neo-Platonist and anti-materialistic philosopher, and Descartes' affirmation of God's real existence fascinates him. Newton, however, disagrees fundamentally with Descartes and Henry More:

But his loathing for Descartes … hath its origin in a difference betwixt their temperaments. Descartes … is a great hand for twisting the cosmos to fit his theory. Newton, on the other hand, is a patient and brilliant experimenter, with a sacred regard for the facts of nature.

(p. 23)

The opposition between Descartes and Henry More, on the one hand, and Newton, on the other, has its parallel in the difference between Ebenezer Cooke and Henry Burlingame. These characters represent two opposing philosophical views, the difference between which has its origins in “the ancient quarrel” between nominalists and realists, which will be considered later at greater length. Henry and Eben stand for various attitudes to life, which again are reflected in contrasting conceptions of poetry.

The difference between the two makes itself explicitly felt in a discussion about virtue, more especially that of virginity. Eben distinguishes between “plain” and “significant” virtues. The former are not ends in themselves but serve as guides through life and are therefore practical and social. The “significant” virtues possess value in themselves only; they are “forms of ceremony” and “mysterious or poetic” (p. 157). Eben finds that his virginity belongs to the class of significant virtues, thereby expressing what he cherishes most.

The two views on virtue in reality indicate two conceptions of what poetry should be like; a distinction seems to exist between “Instrumental” and “terminal” (p. 156) literature; either a socially oriented literature with a didactic touch, or a poetic-religious literature with no value beyond itself. Barth leans towards the latter conception. He states, for instance, in an interview that “I'm not very responsible in the Social Problems way, I guess”. The Sot-Weed Factor shows that he has not entirely shed that kind of responsibility, as the novel in one sense may be described as a presentation of the different views of poetry described above.

The battle between Isaac Newton and Henry More ends with reconciliation in Henry Burlingame's story; they move into the same lodgings, deciding to “couple the splendors of the physical world to the glories of the ideal” (p. 24). This is an apt description of the novel itself. The book as a whole ends in this kind of synthesis, and Eben and Henry eventually fight for the same cause.

The various conceptions of literature in The Sot-Weed Factor focus on two issues that will be discussed next: First, the question of mimesis, or the extent to which art should imitate reality; and secondly, the question of value, whether literature possesses value in itself without regard to the reader's response or to its practical use.

Henry Burlingame's attitude to reality is that of a man accepting the world in its totality, but at the same time having no deeper regard for it. His stance as a “Cosmic Lover” manifests itself in shocking and grotesquely funny ways at times, for instance when Henry tells Eben about his love of “Portia”, who turns out to be a sow. Burlingame holds that his disposition, his love of the entire world, marks the true poet: “Ye say that women are of the stuff o' poetry, but in fact 'tis the great wide world the poet sings of: God's whole creation is his mistress, and he hath for her this selfsame love and boundless curiosity” (p. 327).

When Henry presents a sample of his poetry, Eben finds it as tasteless as Henry's “cosmic love” that embraces even a pig:

“Let me taste of thy Tears,

And the Wax of thine Ears;

Let me drink of thy Body's own Wine—”

“Eh! 'Sheart! Have done ere you gag me!” Ebenezer cried. “Thy body's own wine! Ne'er have I heard such verses!”

(p. 327)

Henry indeed goes to the extreme in his process of prying into “every plain and secret part” (p. 326) of his beloved or of the world and then rendering his impression in poetry.

In “the Wax of thine Ear” and the like phrases the poet discloses a remarkable sense of realistic detail … However, the strictly mimetic approach to poetry that Barth here ridicules may have such crude effects as Burlingame's short poem. To turn the world into poetry without distinction of any kind produces at best a comic kind of verse without any claim of artistic merit. In an interview, Barth points out how it is impossible to create a hundred percent true imitation of reality in fiction. Instead he prefers to emphasize the gap between reality and fiction.

Compared with Henry, Eben approaches reality in his fiction in a directly opposite way. When as a boy he studies geography and history, he refuses to accept the world of the geographical and historical facts as the final version (p. 8). He holds the worlds which originate in his imagination as real as God's creation.

Eben greatly favours play-acting as a child, but these games, “like the facts of life and the facts of history and geography” (p. 270), are equally real or unreal to him. It is emphasized that he considers both life and the world of play “from the storyteller's point of view … never could he really embrace either” (pp. 270-1). Eben does not recognize any division between life and fiction. The world of poetry represents an addition to and not a copy of life. The question of mimesis has at first no relevance in Eben's case. In his verse he does not want to create a reflection of the world, but produces an alternative to it.

When Ebenezer Cooke in his inexperience sets out to fulfil his role as “poet and virgin”, Burlingame very appropriately asks: “But what on earth hath a virgin to sing of?” (p. 121). Ebenezer meekly confesses that he has written one poem “on the subject of my innocence” (p. 121). Still, Henry wonders what apart from his innocence Eben may write of, since life itself lies outside the scope of Eben's knowledge. In fact Eben has problems with what to choose for his subject matter until he meets Joan. The poem Eben composes, inspired by his love for her, abounds in references to classical literature and centres on his own chastity; his beloved Joan is just mentioned.

Ebenezer does not use the actual woman of flesh and blood as a source for his poem. He draws on his own ideas and his own learning. McEvoy, Joan's pimp, sees that Eben loves “the vision” and not the girl herself: “Think not ye love Joan Toast, Mr. Cooke: 'tis your love ye love, and that's but to say 'tis yourself and not my Joan” (pp. 61-2). The ideal Joan that Eben has conceived in his mind and that he transfers to the girl, has little relation to Joan, the London whore.

Similarly, when Eben decides to write his Marylandiad and wants to describe first his voyage to the province, he is not bothered for long by the circumstance that he has not even started his journey yet: “he resolved to write his epic Marylandiad in the form of an imaginary voyage, thinking thereby to discover to the reader the delights of the Province with the same freshness and surprise wherewith they would discover themselves to the voyager-poet” (p. 168). This surprise becomes even greater than Eben imagines because of the discrepancy between his verse and the Maryland he eventually meets with. Also on board the ship which takes him across the Atlantic, Eben is in for a surprise when the food falls markedly short of the “Delight / As met our Sea-sharp'd Appetites” (p. 211) in his epic.

But again he does not act upon his discoveries: “All this, however, was mere disillusionment, the fault … merely of Ebenezer's own naîveté or, as he himself felt mildly … of the nature of Reality, which had failed to measure up to his expectations” (p. 212). For yet some time Eben cleaves to the ideas of his imagination, expressing these in his poetry, and paying no attention to life as it unfolds around him.

That Ebenezer here pursues a blind alley that leads nowhere but to destruction and death, the novel emphasizes in several ways. Joan in the disguise of Susan, “a swine-maiden” (p. 301), tells Eben a story which shows the danger of choosing the ideal for the real world. Humphrey, the protagonist of the story, marris Susan because of her likeness to his beloved, Elizabeth, who has just died. Susan feels that her husband does not love her, but her likeness to the diseased Elizabeth. She forces him to choose between the dead Elizabeth and her living self: “And choose he did, though not a word be said of't; for next morn he was too ill to rise, and died not four days after“(p. 303). To reach for the ideal means death, because it lies beyond mortal man to attain it.

This story serves as a warning to Ebenezer. Like Humphrey, he has a choice to make between the ideal Joan of his imagination and Joan/Susan, pox-ridden but alive. Eben at this stage rejects Joan, which in fact means that he still prefers his ideal, imaginary world to life. Shortly after this encounter with Joan/Susan, he signs away his proprietorship of Malden, his estate, out of blind idealism and ignorance: “'twas not rum, wrongheadedness, or the rage o' the mob that brought ye low, but simple pride and innocence, such as have ruined many a noble wight before” (p. 435), Eben is told when the truth dawns on him.

Eben's innocence and idealism land him where he least expects; as a servant on his own estate. No-one receives him as the Poet Laureate of Maryland. He tries, nevertheless, to cultivate his ideals of “Justice, Truth, and Beauty” (p. 387) in his poetry. But his first literary attempts are not successful while his mock-epic “The Sot-Weed Factor” is read and praised and outlasts the death of its author.

Both Henry and Ebenezer fail in their approaches to the question of mimesis in poetry. While Eben soars too high above the ground in the upper spheres of philosophy and idealism, Henry is too closely involved in the sordid realities of life. The novel advocates a reconciliation between the two ways of regarding reality. After the devastating experience at his estate, Ebenezer realizes both the values and the short-comings of his former attempts:

What moral doth the story hold? … is't that what the world lacks we must ourselves supply?

My brave assault on Maryland—this knight-errantry of Innocence and Art—sure, I see now 'twas an edifice raised not e'en on sand, but on the black and vasty zephyrs of the Pit. Wherefore a voice in me cries, ‘Down with't, then!’ while another stands in awe before the enterprise; sees in the vanity of't all nobleness allowed to fallen men. 'Tis no mere castle in the air, this second voice says, but a temple of the mind, Athene's shrine, whe the Intellect seeks refuge from Furies more terrific than e'er beset Orestes—

(p. 629)

This outburst about his two inner voices discloses Eben's awareness of the two strains in his personality. He recognizes the limitations of his lofty “Marylandiad”, a poem from the “virgin” era of his life.

The solution to the mimetic problem in literature, which The Sot-Weed Factor arrives at, is closely connected with the general view of reality in the novel. One incident concerning Eben's sister serves to illustrate the basic conception of existence in the book. Anna, after marrying an Indian, turns all savage and becomes a dirty, dumb squaw; to keep the balance between cultivation and savagery, her husband turns into the perfect English gentleman. The process is reversed when Anna later becomes a civilized woman and her husband goes Indian again.

The Sot-Weed Factor presents a cosmology where the chaotic forces are kept in check by order and civilization, and where outlet of energy is balanced by repression and control. This view is further underlined by the many triangles, sexual, racial and political, which the novel abounds in. The triangles in The Sot-Weed Factor symbolize the transcendence of opposites into a harmonious whole—which is also the aesthetic credo of the novel.

That this wholeness which Eben reaches in his conception of reality has importance for him as a poet becomes clear from one of his dreams. Eben has twice a dream of twin mountains separated by an abyss. These mountain cones have at least two connotations. The word twin indicates the connection between the two mountains, and Eben and his twin-sister Anna. An incident where Eben meets Anna in her status as a squaw indicates the meaning of the mountains. Eben tells Anna: “'tis as if we were on twin mountaintops, with what an abyss between! We shall span it ere we leave this cabin” (p. 654). Anna, the temporary savage, and Eben, the civilized gentleman, here represent the life/art dichotomy that Eben eventually will “span”. Secondly, the reference is to Parnassus and the poets trying to climb to the top (cf. ch. xxxii of Part II).

In this dream Parnassus consists of two cones. Eben lands on one of the tops, and at first he wonders whether he has got to the right one, which should then be Parnassus. He thinks there is only one kind of Parnassus and one kind of poetry, the “virgin” one. But a poet who has reached the top earlier tells Eben: “Sometimes I think 'tis one, sometimes the other. … What doth it matter?” (p. 455). This underlines Eben's limitations, both existentially, when pursuing the life of a virgin, and as regards his ideas of poetry.

Eben manages to attain a synthetic view of life whereby both parts of existence are taken into consideration. And it is at this point in his development that he possesses the insight through which he performs the heroic work of the poet that he originally intended. His first Marylandiad represents one extreme in its portrayal of reality; the inhabitants of the province become semi-gods in this poem. “The Sot-Weed Factor” that Eben writes afterwards, contains a more balanced approach to reality. The poem does not soar to the lofty heights of the spirit, nor does it aim at a “true” picture of life with all its sordid details. “The Sot-Weed Factor” is a mock-epic, caricaturing the people of Maryland and concluding with a curse on this province “Where no Man's Faithful, nor a Woman chast!” (p. 462).

The second issue of this discussion concerns the question of the value of literature. Also on this point Eben and Henry disagree. In a debate with Henry Burlingame (disguised as Peter Sayer), Ebenezer contends for the inherent merit of a poem which exists regardless of its creator and whether it finds readers or not. Henry stresses the importance of the poem to create interest. He finds that the value of a poem depends on the reader's range of human experience, of which he himself possesses far more than Eben, and he accordingly tells his friend that Eben's poem has greater significance to him than to the poet himself (p. 123). This dispute whether the poem has inherent value or not, Henry holds to be “an ancient one” (p. 137), and by this he refers to the discussion in antiquity concerning universals: According to the realists, universals exist prior to things and independent of physical experience. This theory was supported by Plato and opposed by the nominalists who hold that universals have no real being but exist post res or after things.

The debate concerning the merit versus the interest of a poem discloses that Eben sympathizes with Plato while Henry leans towards nominalism. The poem that gives rise to the quarrel between them shows how Eben has a disregard for human beings: “the message of the whole was simply that we folk were too absurd to do credit to a Sublime Intelligence” (p. 124). Thus Eben holds poetry to have value per se, and he ranks it above human beings.

When Eben receives his commission from Lord Baltimore alias Henry Burlingame, he gives a speech on the value of poetry versus the actual incidents it describes. People and historical events that would otherwise be forgotten attain immortality in poetry. Ebenezer asserts that the greatness of a prince lies “not in [his] deeds … but in their telling” (p. 74). In poetry “bright grow brighter” (p. 74), and the factual world does not count, but is presented in an ennobled state in verse. When Lord Baltimore asks Eben to “make me this Maryland, that neither time nor intrigue can rob me of” (p. 92), this suits Eben very well. The worth of poetry depends on its ability to idealize the world.

Ebenezer Cooke discards all pecuniary considerations. He has no eye on material gain with his writing. The incident where Eben maltreats Ben Bragg's account book stresses symbolically his disregard for the world of business in connection with poetry. He intends to use this book as notebook for his poetry compositions. He rips out the used pages, and he wants to blot out the book's categories of debit and credit by gluing in his commission as Poet Laureate instead. For Eben the value of poetry has nothing to do with material qualities.

In Eben's opinion poetry should guide and enrich man in his needs: This view Eben embraces at the outset of his journey, and it is thoroughly ridiculed in the episode where Eben has dirtied himself. Waking up in a stable, he starts to look for means of getting rid of the dirt. At last he finds that his only solution is to look towards literature for help. He tears out some unused pages of his notebook reflecting on the cleansing effect of poetry: “the unused sheets were songs unborn, which yet had power, as it were in utero, to cleanse and ennoble him who would in time deliver them” (pp. 174-5). This satiric incident is the only example in the novel where poetry possesses a “purifying” effect. In the course of the story, Ebenezer Cooke changes his evaluation of poetry. As will be discussed later, he discards the idea that poetry has value first and foremost as an instrument of purification and idealization.

Before considering Eben's ultimate view as regards the value of poetry, the discussion will turn to Henry Burlingame's ideas in this connection. His emphasis on the capacity of a poem to appeal to the reader's interest, leads to a disregard of the ethic and aesthetic qualities a poem may possess. Henry's slight evaluation of poetry has its foundation in his general attitude to life. Henry Burlingame changes his personality incessantly and this corresponds to his idea of the world as having no order, no constancy (p. 330).

This view also pertains to moral questions. Henry's tutoring of Eben aims at teaching him that Lord Baltimore is not all good and Cooke all bad (cf. pp. 485 ff.), but the danger attached to this kind of lesson is that Eben will find nothing good or nothing bad; the flux of the world becomes total, also in a moral sense. Eben rightly doubts his friend's good intentions at times, believing him to be on the side of evil.

Henry does not particularly cherish anything as good or evil, or of greater and lesser worth. This relates also to his regard of poetry: “we set no such criterion as significance” (p. 386), Henry informs Eben when they have the contest in composing Hudibrastic poetry. What counts with Henry is not the meaning of poetry, but merely the effect it may have on the readers: “I could have writ my own Principia of the flesh! … to cause whate'er reaction I pleased” (p. 331). Poetry has worth only to the extent that the poet may use it for his own intended effect.

Eben does not go along with Henry Burlingame's disregard of value and order. He may at times give in to Henry's sophistication in proving the world a flux, and then he exclaims: “I know of naught immutable and sure!” (p. 128). But on the whole he finds meaning and purpose where Henry dismisses the case with his characteristic shrug. Eben eventually sees his role as the saviour of “humankind”. Accordingly, he finds the value of poetry in its capacity to arrest the flux or the chaos by creating order and meaning.

Eben's esteem of poetry or the word may be seen from an episode where Henry deplores his state as an orphan. Henry has no knowledge of his forefathers and his past. His only feeling of identity and belonging stems from his name, Henry Burlingame the Third, which he cherishes as his most precious possession. Ebenezer agrees, stressing the value of the name further by exclaiming: “'Tis your name that links you with your forebears; thou'rt not wholly ex nihilo after all! 'Tis a kind of clue to the riddle!” (p. 131). The name or the word, and in larger contexts the narrative, the tale, is a means of salvation; it imposes order on a chaotic world.

This point is further emphasized by the role the various journals and “privy” histories play in the novel. Henry Burlingame learns with the assistance of Ebenezer that in Maryland two manuscripts exist which may contain the secret of his family and his descent. One is “Captain John Smith's Secret Historie of the Voiage up the Bay of Chesapeake” in which a certain Burlingame figures prominently as one of Smith's party; and the second manuscript is this same Burlingame's “Privie Journall” of his experiences on Smith's expedition.

Because of the scarcity of writing material in Maryland, both Smith's and Burlingame's accounts contain, on the reversed side, writings of a more official nature: On the verso of Smith's “Historie”, the Journal of the 1691 Assembly in Maryland has been written, while the verso of Burlingame's “Journal” has “Coode's record of confiscations and prosecutions during his brief tenure of office” (p. 729).

Both the official journals and those that concern Henry function in the same way in the novel. The official papers have been smuggled away by the party that opposes Lord Baltimore's authority in the province. The Assembly Journal “was exceedingly valuable to the cause of order and justice in Maryland” (p. 265). The manuscript functions as a kind of national identity. It provides a record of the proceedings of the past that may serve as a guiding-line to the chaotic conditions of the present. The Journal contains evidence against Coode, Lord Baltimore's opponent, and the whole of Maryland may be lost in war and racial strife if the Journal is not found.

The “Journall” that holds the clue to Burlingame's past functions in the same way. It supplies Henry with a private history. This manuscript also helps to establish peace and order in the province, because it contains the eggplant recipe with the help of which Henry may prove his procreative ability and be accepted as the son of the Indian chief. Henry must gain the favour of the Indians to save Maryland from civil war.

Both the incidents concerning Henry's identity and those concerning the Assembly Journal suggest where the significance of literature lies. The value of literature comes from its capacity to create order and meaning in a chaotic world. This view represents a reconciliation between Eben's and Henry's attitudes; Eben's view that literature should ennoble the world; and Henry's, that literature has value only as far as it appeals to the audience. In the last instance it is Ebenezer Cooke, Poet Laureate of Maryland, who procures the missing parts of the “Privie Journall” and becomes the saviour of the province and “humankind”.

As for the question of the truth of fiction, the novel emphasizes that this is an irrelevant problem. The value of fiction does not depend on its “truth”. Thus to save Anna's honour in the eyes of the world, and especially in her father's, Eben makes up a tale that the child Anna and he bring up, belongs to Joan, who died in childbed, while actually it is Anna's own boy fathered by Henry: “This fiction, once established, had a marked effect on Ebenezer and his sister” (p. 749). Anna gets over her shame of bearing a child out of wedlock and lives happily with Ebenezer.

The tale about the parentage of Anna's child “once established” has greater consequences than the truth. In this case, as with the replaced “Journalls”, literature creates meaning and order of the sordid facts of life. Besides, Eben's nonchalant handling of “the truth” has its parallel in the free use Barth makes of the historical sources of the novel.

This brings us back to the discussion of mimesis. Ebenezer attains a balance in his poetry as regards the question of mimesis. This is because he arrives at a view of reality which reconciles the opposing forces of life. Also as to the problem of value in literature adherence to the truth, or mimesis, becomes less important. Literature has value as far as it manages to create meaning and order, and this again depends on its ability to incorporate the antithetical elements of existence without suppressing any of them.

Finally, this discussion will briefly look into the relation between Eben's poem, “The Sot-Weed Factor”, and Barth's novel of the same title. In his last stage as a poet, Eben adopts the same mock-epic style in his poem as John Barth in his novel: The Sot-Weed Factor satirizes the people and conditions of colonial Maryland as well as the traditional epic genre. In addition, the novel parodies the 18th century language and other literary forms besides the epic. The fact that the novel mirrors the poem, leaves a hint about the essential quality of the book. Like the poem, Barth's novel does not intend to present a realistic picture of the 18th century: The Sot-Weed Factor discusses the nature of storytelling, especially the ethical/religious and aesthetic problems this entails for the narrator.

3. THE CAPRICIOUS READER

The narratee plays a rather modest part in The Sot-Weed Factor. A remark Barth makes in an interview strengthens the impression one gets from the novel about the reader's role: “I enjoy the freedom to follow purely aesthetic leanings … Obviously, I'd like a large distribution and as large a readership as possible, but such thoughts don't begin to enter until I've finished a book”. Not till the fourth and last part of The Sot-Weed Factor does the author address the reader explicitly. This part functions as a kind of coda to the main proceedings of the novel which on the whole terminate by the end of the third part.

But John Barth is a writer of greater moral concern than, for instance, Nabokov, despite his aesthetic manifesto and has a religious dimension not found in the works of the older novelist. Ebenezer Cooke, the author's spokesman, has a message to convey, but he does not allow consideration of the audience to change his writing to any large degree.

In the first three parts of The Sot-Weed Factor, more or less indirect references to an audience do exist and the impression is conveyed that the readers on the whole misunderstand the author's meaning. After having written his masterpiece, the poem “The Sot-Weed Factor”, Ebenezer thinks that this epic will not make the public favourably disposed towards its author:

… he affixed his full title—Ebenezer Cooke, Gentleman, Poet & Laureat of the Province of Maryland—in full recognition that with the poem's publication, should he ever send it to a printer, he would forfeit any chance of receiving that title in fact.

Publication, however, did not especially interest him at the moment.

(p. 462)

Ironically enough, the poem is well received, and thus the audience's reactions are contrary to the poet's expectations.

That an audience cannot be trusted in its evaluation of art is further emphasized in Part IV, which lists more accurately the reactions to Ebenezer's publications, particularly to “The Sot-Weed Factor”:

… its net effect was precisely what Baltimore had hoped to gain from a Marylandiad, and precisely the reverse of its author's intention. Maryland, in part because of the well-known poem, acquired in the early eighteenth century a reputation for graciousness and refinement … and a number of excellent families were induced to settle there.

(pp. 754-755)

The author intends to describe the barbarous conditions of Maryland so that future settlers may be warned off.

Especially the first three parts of the novel reveal a low opinion of the reader's ability to grasp the point, while in the fourth part the “author” assumes a confidential air when addressing the reader, taking mutual understanding between author and reader for granted. This may by due to the fact that in the last part the author steps forth qua author and speaks to the readers directly, above the heads of characters such as Ebenezer. This can be seen from the subtitle to this part: “THE AUTHOR APOLOGIZES TO HIS READERS” (p. 741), and from the fact that the author speaks to the readers as “we”.

Nevertheless, the impression prevails that the author of The Sot-Weed Factor, just like the author of the poem of the same title, does not really care about the reader. He is not primarily writing to educate his audience. In the novel, the author displays, on the one hand, a strong belief in the inherent power of the Word to create order and meaning. Thus, he lets a poet become the saviour of “humankind”. But, at the same time, Barth is sceptical about the reader's ability to grasp the message, which the public reception of Eben's poem, “The Sot-Weed Factor”, exemplifies. The author's ambivalent attitude towards the Word becomes an issue of greater significance in Giles Goat-Boy.

4. CONCLUSION—THE SOT-WEED FACTOR

In contrast to the other novels under consideration in this study, The Sot-Weed Factor is written from the third person point of view. Instead of focusing on the narrator, the discussion deals with the protagonist of the novel and his concerns. Ebenezer Cooke, in his role as a poet, faces problems similar to those of the first person narrator in the other novels. Besides, Barth stresses the similarities between the author and the poet-protagonist in his book.

Eben and his friend Henry embody opposite aspects of a poet's personality or represent two kinds of poets. The difference between Eben and Henry has its roots in contrasting philosophical views. Eben believes in the poet's mission as God-sent—an idea which Henry with his materialistic atheism rejects.

The difference between Eben and Henry manifests itself in what they regard as their roles in the world. Henry involves himself completely in the affairs of his surroundings, which he manipulates to his heart's delight for no other purpose than the pleasure he takes in plotting and stirring up action. His activity has no ultimate purpose. In contrast to Henry, Eben keeps himself aloof from the world. He imagines the ideal poet to be a remote god or a prelapsarian Adam and holds that poetry has a didactic function.

The novel moves towards a reconciliation between the two extremes represented by Eben and Henry. In the first two parts of the novel, Eben is without a real identity. To play the role of the true poet, i.e. to become the redeemer of the world, he has to take an active part in the affairs of life. At the same time, however, Eben has a need for his idealism and belief in his calling, to rescue “humankind”.

Eben's and Henry's standing as poets is expressed in terms of their relations with the opposite sex. Eben eventually abandons his state of virgin poet, dedicated to art, and attains a more real identity as an artist when he commits himself to Joan. Henry's numberless affairs with women suggest his immense creative resources. He has, however, to find his real identity before he can produce something of value—symbolically expressed through his fathering a child.

Finally, the two strains in the poet's personality balance each other as can be seen from Eben's example. He manages to reconcile his dedication to art—which will ultimately terminate in death—with his commitment to life.

.....

In the discussion of the narrative, Eben and Henry were found to hold different views, particularly concerning the question of mimesis in art and the value of poetry.

As regards mimesis, Henry observes an accurate rendering of reality in his poetic attempts, while Eben is too remote from the actual world in his poetry. He regards the poetic flights of his imagination, not as imitations of, but as alternatives to the existing world.

Eben believes that poetry has inherent merit and is valuable because of the idealized version it presents of the world and this has an ennobling effect on the readers. Henry regards the ethic and aesthetic qualities of a poem as unimportant; poetry has value only as far as it may create interest with the readers.

On both these issues, Henry and Eben represent the extremes in their views, and the novel indicates a reconciliation of their opposite opinions. Eben's only successful poem, “The Sot-Weed Factor”, is neither a too accurate nor a too remote reflection of reality, being a satiric exposure of Maryland. The incidents with the various official journals and private “histories” demonstrate that the value of literature depends both on its inherent qualities and on its ability to create meaning in a chaotic world.

.....

The novel does not attach great significance to the narratee, as he is only directly addressed in the fourth part. This ties in with the author's view when he says that only towards the end of the novel does he think of the reader. In the last part the narrator discloses his confidence in the reader through his use of “we”.

The first three parts form a contrast to the last one: The reader is not directly spoken to, and, because of the unexpected reception of Eben's poem, the readers' opinions are not esteemed very highly.

GILES GOAT-BOY

Giles Goat-Boy is a work deeply related to The Sot-Weed Factor, but it appears structurally more complicated because of its various allegorical levels. One could roughly divide the existing criticism on the novel into two groups; mythological and symbolic-allegorical criticism. The first category examines the relation between the novel and studies of the mythic hero.

Campbell Tatham and David Morrell show how Barth applies the twenty-two stages of the hero as explained in Lord Raglan's book The Hero. A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama, when describing the goat-boy's development. Raymond Olderman discusses the novel on the basis of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He finds that George follows the pattern of Campbell's “monomyth”; departure, initiation and return.

John Barth explains that he did not read either Raglan or Campbell till critics pointed out the influence of these works in The Sot-Weed Factor, and then he consciously used the pattern in his next novel: “Goat-Boy is not the orchestration of any particular myth of a wandering hero; it embodies elements which can be abstracted from almost all of them. And it consciously follows that pattern, of course, in a satiric fashion”.

John Tilton's article on Giles Goat-Boy is a valuable contribution to the symbolic-allegorical criticism. He sets out to examine “first, the Hero Myth, centering on Giles, Bray, and Anastasia … second, the Founder's Hill Myth, embracing Stoker and Lucius Rexford and exploring the myth of the devil; and third, the Boundary Dispute Myth, involving the rivalry between East and West …” Tilton here lists the three major allegorical levels in the novel. He finds that the message of the novel is that “Passage” and “Failure”, good and evil “are not strict opposites but polarities, together forming a unity in the harmony of opposites”.

Several critics have commented on the political-historical allegory of the novel—which corresponds to Tilton's third category: The global East-West consolidations after World War II are presented in terms of opposing campuses within a university (i.e. universe). As for metafictional criticism, no full-length, systematic study exists to my knowledge: Possibly, this aspect may constitute the fourth allegorical level, representing, in the story about the goat-boy, the origin and nature of fiction.