SOURCE: Beebe, Maurice. Introduction to Ivory Towers and Sacred Founts: The Artist as Hero in Fiction from Goethe to Joyce, pp. 3-18. New York: New York University Press, 1964.

In the following introduction to what is generally considered the definitive study of the künstlerroman, Beebe examines the theory of the “Divided Self” whereby the main character of a book is an outward expression of the author himself; he also explores the “Ivory Tower” tradition in which the writer “exalts art above life” and the “Sacred Fount” theory where the artist equates art with experience.

No sooner has Denis Stone, the young poet in Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow, confessed that he is writing a novel than he is chagrined to hear a new acquaintance describe the plot of the story:

“Little Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. He passes through the usual...