The Writer As Shaman: The Pilgrimages of Conrad Aiken and Walker Percy

MERCER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Ted R. Spivey

In The Writer as Shaman, Ted R. Spivey argues that after lifelong pilgrimages both Conrad Aiken and Walker Percy have become authentic "men of letters" in an age when that class of human beings is nearly extinct. They serve as guides and helpers to many others who seek to make sense of the role of literature and the humanities in a world in which science and technology often seem to represent the summit of human achievement. Both writers early absorbed the viewpoint of modern science and yet worked from youth onward in the realms of philosophy and literature. They saw the split between science and art as the fundamental problem of modern civilization. They grew up in different times and with different life goals; their solutions to the problem were formulated in somewhat different terms. Yet underneath it all, their common belief in an underlying unity that connects the arts and sciences emerged in the same way — as each became what Aiken calls a "divine pilgrim."

Both Aiken and Percy produced their most important work at an age when most writers have sunk into repetition or silence. In preparation for their mature work, both underwent a long apprenticeship in literature, philosophy, and psychology, enabling them to establish themselves in the chief traditions of Western art and thought. They became, in the Emersonian sense, "representative" of civilization in a century when most philosophers and scientists were becoming narrow specialists and most artists were in partial or total revolt against the past.

What set them apart from the mainstream were their struggles with individual and family chaos. Both sprang from affluent families with a lively interest in the arts and sciences, yet both experienced family dissolution under the most painful circumstances. Both authors in their emergence out of dissolution to a life beyond personal and social alienation.

Mircea Eliade has described the ancient shaman as "a sick man... who has succeeded in curing himself." Like the shaman, Aiken and Percy have discovered transcendent power in dissolution and in apprenticeship in the traditions of their culture. That power impels them to call for cultural renewal. In their best work, they reveal what happens when cultural unity collapses in a time of extreme tension — as in the twentieth century — but they also reveal a quest for the necessary grace and reason that will make new cultural patterns possible.

Professor Spivey maneuvers with ease and confidence through a considerable mass of philosophical, psychological, and cultural thought, making it readily accessible to readers from a variety of disciplines. The Writer as Shaman does not simply compare Aiken and Percy; it is a cultural study of our times as reflected in the works and lives of two twentieth-century writers and pilgrims.

Back cover reviews:

"Long an advocate of 'the need for cultural renewal' through the merger of humanistic and scientific values, Ted R. Spivey in The Writer as Shaman boldly parallels the prophetic quests for transcendent meaning made by two American 'pilgrims," Conrad Aiken and Walker Percy, in the face of the cultural chaos of the twentieth century. Although the reader may initially doubt, even resist, the idea of pairing Aiken and Percy, he will find Spivey's wide-ranging study to be not only a plausible but also a convincing demonstration of the logical necessity of bringing these two 'authentic men of letters' into a common focus. Spivey proceeds in part by a striking argument in which he shows how the motives of Aiken and Percy are related to the concept of 'American liberalism' as it issued in William James. Ultimately, in a discussion that takes into account the thought and emotion of Emerson, Kierkegaard, Freud, Jung, Buber, Heidegger, and of various Oriental philosophers as well, Spivey discovers in the work of Aiken and Percy a comprehensive vision of a mode of communication that, at once intellectual and spiritual, offers the possibility of redemption from our psychic isolation in a society of specialized function by the restoration of man's capacity to seek a transcending cultural harmony. A book that acknowledges today's fashions, yet is independent of them, The Writer as Shaman demands the attention of students of modern literature, philosophy, and history, both American and European."
— Lewis P. Simpson, Editor, The Southern Review

"Seeing both writers as shamans, Spivey has utilized an excellent instrument for analyzing both their intentions and their artistic performances. He makes a case for Aiken's poetry that needs to be made just now, as we approach the centenary of that author's birth. Best of all, Spivey demonstrates that a comparative study of writers can offer insights that the study of one writer, in isolation, may not produce."
— Douglas Robillard, University of New Haven

Ted R. Spivey is Regents' Professor of English at Georgia State University, where he has taught since 1956. He has written many articles and five books-most recently, Revival: Southern Writers in the Modern City.

Publication Date: June 1, 1987