A Mysterious Self-Portrait

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 17; p. 46
• Main Author: Saunders, Max
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2013
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); English literature; Freud, Sigmund (1856-1939); Pater, Walter (1839-1894)
• ISSN: 0954-0970

[...]he seems not to recognise the problems that William Hale White's fictionalizing of event causes for his reading; a reading which - perhaps because of Willey's strong Methodist beliefneeds to ground itself on the idea, or hope, of autobiographical truth.5 I don't mean to suggest that I think there's anything fundamentally dishonest about fiction. [...]this is the fifth level: this mysterious story suggests that Mark Rutherford's autobiography too might be an imaginary portrait. According to this reading - surely the received one - the book is the disguised autobiography of Hale White. According to this sense of 'imaginary portrait', our sixth, the Autobiography is an imaginary portrait not because it's basically of Hale White but alters some details in the life (which would make it autobiografiction); but because it's a self-portrait that isn't of White, but of someone who doesn't actually exist: