Killoran demonstrates that an understanding of the particular types
of literary allusion to be found in Edith Wharton's novels produces fresh
readings of her work and her life.
Edith Wharton was extremely well read in many areas of
literature, literary criticism, travel writing, social and natural sciences,
history, and philosophy. Furthermore, she read prolifically in these and
other subjects in English, French, German, and Italian. Wharton was also
intimately familiar with the fine arts, including painting, sculpture,
architecture, and landscape gardening. Wharton's abiding knowledge of such
a wide range of subjects became the foundation for her use and invention
of many new types of literary allusion, some functioning much like the
conceits of 17th-century metaphysical poetry and others working together
to form an elaborate code.
As her writing progressed, Wharton invented increasingly
sophisticated and entirely original types of allusion. To show that developing
complexity, Killoran examines ten of Wharton's novels chronologically.
A final chapter discusses the many previously unnoticed subtexts in the
novels examined and demonstrates that those subtexts provide unmistakable
clues to intimate details of the author's life.
Killoran calls for a reassessment not only of the critical
possibilities of Wharton's work and the private life about which she was
so reticent but also of her position in American literature. Killoran concludes
that, as a bridge between the Victorians and the highly allusive modernists
such as Eliot and Joyce, Edith Wharton stands independently as an American
writer of the first rank.
