Malcolm Lowry's Aggregate Daemon: a Study on the Psychology of Influence.

Like many artists throughout history, Malcolm Lowry suffered from the anxiety of influence. After learning his craft from various man-of-action writers with whom he shared a spiritual affinity, he attempted to transcend their influence in an effort to establish his own unique narrative voice. Unfortunately, the fact that he was a prolific reader with a photographic memory made it difficult for him to distinguish between what he absorbed from others and what he originated himself. Accused by reviewers of being a derivative artist and by himself for being a plagiarist, he carried on a life- and -death struggle with a composite figure he called his "aggregate daemon." My dissertation concerns what effect this had on his life and art. After summarizing the critical debate concerning the value of the study of influence, I state my reasons for believing that a treatise devoted to Lowry's aggregate daemon may be the best way of underst and ing why Lowry completed only two novels in his lifetime, identified hysterically with other writers, spent years revising without ever finishing his works in progress, and consequently, failed to write anything comparable to his one artistic masterpiece, Under the Volcano. Since there is no universal agreement regarding the nature of influence, I have formulated my own theory by consolidating some of the ideas of Walter Jackson Bate, Harold Bloom, and the Danish logician, Goran Hemeren. Moreover, I have utilized extrinsic and intrinsic information in drawing my conclusions; that is, I have taken the approach E. D. Hirsch recommends in his book, Validity in Interpretation. Although I discuss what Lowry's work has in common with that of his aggregate daemon, my main emphasis is upon the psychology of influence; more specifically, upon the ways in which Lowry's dependency on writers like Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, Nordahl Grieg, and Conrad Aiken restricted the perimeters of his art and caused his consciousness to turn inward. My intention is to show that what destroyed Lowry, what was responsible for his impoverished imagination, was not so much his alcoholism, but rather his obsession with his aggregate daemon; an obsession which prevented him from finding his own unique narrative voice.PhDModern literatureUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/158616/1/8204630.pd