Abstract

Morris provides an analysis of John Gardner's oeuvre that is in keeping with Gardner's acknowledged devotion to the Aristotelian view of art. He sorts through the complexity of allusions to Blake, Melville, and Poe in "The King's Indian" and describes the ongoing battle of the 'moral' philosophers Collingwood and Whitehead with the 'naysayers' Nietzsche and Sartre in "The Resurrection", "Grendel", and "Mickelsson 's Ghosts". Morris's study does not attempt to defend Gardner's use of what he called the "college technique" of fiction writing, but he does show how Gardner creates resonance by layering his fictions with such allusions, developing an art form that expresses "a moral aesthetic that [Gardner] thought viable, proven, and trustworthy."