The artful equivocation of William Golding's The Double Tongue - Critical Essay

Twentieth Century Literature, Fall, 2001 by J.H. Stape

(6.) Cf. Acts of the Apostles: "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD" (17.22-23). The last four words conclude the novel.

(7.) Green objects that Sappho threw herself off Leuctra not Leukas, that Arieka is not a Greek name, that Corinth was in ruins at the time of the novel, that the name of an actual priest of Apollo (since these are known) should have been used rather than a fictional one, and that Hittite is not identical with Linear A or B. Lefkowitz also objects to the name Arieka and faults Golding's handling of sexuality and religious practice.

(8.) For a brief but illuminating discussion of late-classical representations of the hermaphrodite and an interpretation of their meaning, see Stewart on "Gender Drift and the Bisexual Body" (229-30).

(9.) Crompton's discussion of biblical and classical allusion and intertextuality in Darkness Visible offers useful perspectives on Golding's practice here.

Works cited

Crompton, Donald W. "Biblical and Classical Metaphor in Darkness Visible." Twentieth Century Literature 28.2 (1982):195-215.

Dick, Bernard F. William Golding. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1987.

Dover, Kenneth J. Greek Homosexuality. 1978. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989.

Faber & Faber. Publisher's note. The Double Tongue. By Golding. London: Faber, 1995. i-v.

Frye, Northrop. An Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.

Gindin, James. William Golding. London: Macmillan, 1988.

Golding, William. "Belief and Creativity" (1980). A Moving Target. London: Faber, 1982. 185-202.

-----. Darkness Visible. London: Faber, 1979.

-----. "Delphi" (1967). A Moving Target. London: Faber, 1982. 36-43.

-----. The Double Tongue. London: Faber, 1995.

-----. A Moving Target. London: Faber, 1982.

-----. The Paper Men. London: Faber, 1984.

-----. Rites of Passage. London: Faber, 1980.

-----. To the Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy. London: Faber, 1991.

Green, Peter. "Speaking in the Oracular" Rev of The Double Tongue Washington Post Book World 1 Oct. 1995: 5, 12.

Haffenden, John. "William Golding." Novelists in Interview. London: Methuen, 1985. 97-120.

Hensher, Philip. "Lord of the Unambiguous Statement." Rev, of The Double Tongue. Guardian Weekly 2 July 1995:28.

Kaveney, Roz. "Fate in Frocks." Rev, of The Double Tongue. New Statesman and Society 28 July 1995:40.

Lefkowitz, Mary. "A Dish for the Gods." Rev, of The Double Tongue. Times Literary Supplement 23 June 1995:25.

McCullagh, David Willis. Rev, of The Double Tongue. New York Times Book Review 17 Sep. 1995: 25.

McGann, Jerome J. A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.

Millgate, Michael. Testamentary Acts: Browning, Tennyson, James, Hardy. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.

Stape, J. H. "'Fiction in the Wild Modern Manner': Metanarrative Gesture in William Golding's To the Ends of the Earth Trilogy." Twentieth Century Literature 38.2 (1992): 226-39.