Blix has been viewed by most critics as an anomaly in the otherwise uniform canon of Frank Norris' novels. Because its light, optimistic tone is so unlike that of Norris' better known, naturalistic works, critics have designated Blix as nothing more than a popular turn-of-the-century romance. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to show that Norris himself took the novel much more seriously than most critics have, and that Blix may be most accurately described as Norris' first attempt to synthesize romance and realism in a novel, a technique which later won praise in The Octopus and The Pit. / Chapter One reveals the shaping influences upon the novel of the three literary movements--naturalism, realism, and romance--which most affected Norris throughout his career. This chapter concludes that the eclectic nature of Blix is owing to Norris' experimenting with different kinds of writing in an attempt to develop his ideal combination, what we might today term "romantic realism." Chapter Two goes on to examine the main plot of Blix as an example of this kind of writing, and to show how Norris contrasted seemingly extraneous episodes in the novel with the main plot in order to voice his own aesthetics about good versus bad art. / In keeping with his conviction that real life is romantic by nature, Norris effectively used his own experiences as the basis for much of the main plot of Blix. Therefore, Chapter Three examines the novel as Norris' autobiographical account of his apprenticeship on The Wave and his courtship of the woman he was to marry. This chapter reveals the author of Blix to be a purposeful writer who cared deeply about this novel, and Chapter Four reinforces the fact that he did so. This chapter examines the extensive revisions Norris made of the serialization of Blix before it was published as a book. Chapter Five provides a listing of the textual variants between The Puritan serialization and the first edition of Blix. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-02, Section: A, page: 0446. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74762 |
| Contributors | MUNN, DEBRA DEE., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 288 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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