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Article: The new historicist creepers of 'Vineland.'
- Article from:
- CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction
- Article date:
- June 22, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I dreamed this mortal part of mine Was metamorphosed to a vine Which crawling each and everyway Enthralled my dainty Lucia
- Robert Herrick, "The Vine" (1648)
Although Lucia appears to be both the lyrical and sexual object of Herrick's metaphorical vines, Pynchon, 342 years down the track of literary history, is more explicitly concerned with the vines themselves, rather than the ineffable object they encompass. Unlike Oedipa Maas in The Crying Of Lot 49, who searched for a transcendental meaning behind the hieroglyphic streets, Vineland offers a botanical examination of the cultural and institutional vines that constitute America in the 1980s. At the same ...