Metaphors of The Self: Disraeli’s Early Fiction

Describing the process of writing Death in Venice , Thomas Mann recalled, ‘Originally the tale was to be brief and modest. But things or whatever better word there may be for the conception organic have a will of their own, and shape themselves accordingly… The truth is that every piece of work is a realization, fragmentary but complete in itself, of our individuality; and this kind of realization is the sole and painful way we have of getting the particular experience — no wonder, then, that the process is attended by surprises.’ 1 Mann reminds us that the author both creates a text and discovers an aspect of his or her self during its creation. In Disraeli’s first four novels — Vivian Grey (1826–27), The Young Duke (1831), Contarini Fleming (1832) and The Wondrous Tale of Alroy (1833), he ‘realized’ aspects of his individuality. Not only did he create imagined worlds in his novels, but the novels played a crucial role in creating his character and personality. In discussing Disraeli’s first four novels, I shall argue that understanding the symbiotic relationship between author and text is an essential condition to appreciating his art. An 1833 entry in Disraeli’s ‘mutilated’ diary shows that the novels compensate for his failure to excel even as they protest against accepted English conventions and manners: These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.