Henry P. Mills [working version; initially compiled in 1993]
Note--Some works have multiple listings; the following is a working bibliography initially compiled in 1993.
An Annotated Bibliography of Walker Percy's Works on Language
2. Lost in the Cosmos:The Last-Self Help Book (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1983).
A general, lay philosophical consideration of the nature of the "self" and
its quest for identity. A book in a genre of its own.
3. Signposts in a Strange Land (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1991).
Posthumous publication of Percy's uncollected nonfiction works divided into
three major sections: "Life in the South"; "Science, Language, and
Literature"; and "Morality and Religion."
1. The Message in the Bottle
NOTE ON CHAPTERS 1-6
Only "The Delta Factor,""Metaphor as Mistake," and
"The Message in the Bottle" are directly concerned with a philosophy of language.
Note-[brackets] denote essay in Message in the Bottle collection not focused on language.
"Symbol as Hermeneutic in Existentialism: A Possible Bridge from Empiricism." Philosophy and Phenomenonlogical Research, 16 (June 1956), 522-30. Essay in MB as "Symbol as Hermeneutic in Existentialism."
["The Man on the Train: Three Existential Modes." Partisan Review, 23 (Fall 1956), 478-94. Essay, in MB as "The Man on the Train."]
"Semiotic and a Theory of Knowledge." The Modern Schoolman, 34 (May 1957), 225-46. Essay, in MB.
"The Act of Naming." Forum, 1 (Summer 1957), 4-9. Essay, in MB as "The Mystery of Language."
"Metaphor as Mistake." The Sewanee Review, 64 (Winter 1958), 79-99. Essay, in MB.
"Symbol, Consciousness, and Intersubjectivity." The Journal of Philosophy, 55 (17 June 1958), 631-41. Essay, in MB.
["The Loss of the Creature." Forum, 2 (Fall 1958), 6-14. Essay, in MB.] "Culture: The Antinomy of the Scientific Method." The New Scholasticism, 32 (October 1958), 443-75. Essay, in MB.
"The Message in the Bottle." Thought, 34 (Autumn 1959), 405-33. Essay, in MB.
"Naming and Being." The Personalist, 41 (Spring 1960), 148-57. Essay, in Signposts in a Strange Land [SS].
"The Symbolic Structure of Interpersonal Process." Psychiatry: A Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 24 (February 1961), 39-52. Essay, in MB.
"Symbol and Existence: A Study of Meaning," unpublished manuscript of 318 pages compiled in 1960-61; in Percy collection at UNC-Chapel Hill; miscellaneous chapters published as essays.
["Notes for a Novel about the End of the World." Katallagete, 3 (Winter 1967-68), 7-14. Essay, in MB.]
"Toward a Triadic Theory of Meaning." Psychiatry: A Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 35 (February 1972), 1-19. Essay, in MB.
"The Delta Factor." The Southern Review, 11 (January ,1975), 29-64. Essay, in MB.
The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1975.
"A Theory of Language." First published in MB, 298-327.
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983. Especially "A Semiotic Primer of the Self," pp. 86-126.
"The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind," excerpted as "The Divided Creature" in The Wilson Quarterly, 13 (Summer 1989), 77-87. Also printed in Design for Arts in Education (January 1, 1990) Vol. 91, No. 3, p. 2. In SS pp. 271-291.
Signposts in a Strange Land. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991. Listed essays.
"Is a Theory of Man Possible?". In SS, pp. 111-129. [Unpublished before SS.]
A Bibliography of Secondary Writings on Percy's Semiotic
Essays with Primary Focus
Nagel, Thomas. "Sin and Significance," (review of Message in the Bottle), The New York Review of Books, September 18, 1975, pp. 54-56.
Telotte, J. P. "Walker Percy's Language of Creation" Southern Quarterly 16, 1978 pp. 105-116.
Thornton, Weldon. "Homo Loquens, Homo Symbolificus, Homo Sapines: Walker Percy on Language" in The Art of Walker Percy: Stratagems for Being, Broughton, Panthea, ed. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. pp. 169-191.
Poteat, William H. "Reflections on Walker Percy's Theory of Language" in Broughton, 1979, pp.192-218.
Bigger, Charles. "Walker Percy and the Resonance of the Word." Southern Quarterly, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Spring, 1980, pp. 43-54. [In Tharpe, 1980].
Telotte, J. P. "Charles Peirce and Walker Percy: From Semiotic to Narrative." Southern Quarterly, Vol.. XVIII, No. 3, Spring, 1980, pp. 65-79. [In Tharpe, 1980].
Parker, Frank "Walker Percy's Theory of Language: A Linguist's Assessment" Delta:-Revue-du- Centre-d'Etudes-et-de-Recherche-sur-les-Ecrivains-du-Sud-aux-Etats-Unis, 34032 Montpellier Cedex, France (DeltaES). 1981 Nov., 13, 145-167.
Churchill, John "Walker Percy, Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and the Lost Self" Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Knoxville) Fall, 1984, 67:3 267-282.
Mikolajezak, Michael Allen. "`A Home That Is Hope': Lost Cove, Tennessee" Renascence (Milwaukee), Winter, 1987, Vol XL No. 2, pp. 77-94.
Edwards, Bruce L. "The Linguist as Castaway: A Meditation on Walker Percy's Semiotic Apologetics" Renascence (Milwaukee), Winter, 1987, Vol XL No. 2, pp. 129-144.
Lawson, Lewis. "Walker Percy as Martian Visitor: The Message in the Bottle" in Following Percy: Essays on Walker Percy's Work (1988) by same, pp. 138-147.
Lavid, Julia "La metafora como error: Un aspecto cognitivo de la teoria semiotica de Walker Percy"Revista-Espanola-de-Linguistica, Madrid-14, Spain (REspL). 1988 July-Dec., 18:2, 347-356.
Pitts, May Ellen. "Love in the Fragments: Percy's Dr. Thomas More and the Lacanian Triad" Studies in the Humanities (Indiana) June, 1989, Vol. 16 No.1, pp. 1-9.
Ciuba, Gary M. "Found in the Cosmos: Percy's First Self-Help Book" New Orleans Review (Loyola University), Winter, 1989, Vol. 16 No. 4 pp. 7-16.
Quinlan, Kieran. "The Moviegoer: The Dilemma of Walker Percy's Scholastic
Existentialism"
in Young, Thomas Daniel (ed.). Modern American Fiction: Form and
Function. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1989, pp. 213-224.
Samway, Patrick "Another Case of the Purloined Letter (In Walker Percy's Lancelot) New Orleans Review (Loyola University), Winter, 1989, Vol. 16 No. 4 pp. 37-44.
Vauthier, Simone. "Narrative Triangulation in The Last Gentleman", pp. 69-95 in Broughton, 1979.
Kennedy, J. Gerald "The Sundered Self and the Riven World: Love in the Ruins", pp. 115-36 in Broughton, 1979.
Pearson, Michael. "Art as Symbolic Action: Walker Percy's Aesthetic" Southern Quarterly, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Spring, 1980, pp 55-64.. [In Tharpe, 1980].
Kennedy, J. Gerald "The Semiotics of Memory: Suicide in The Second Coming" Delta:-Revue-du-Centre-d'Etudes-et-de-Recherche-sur-les-Ecrivains-du-Sud-aux-tats-Unis, 34032 Montpellier Cedex, France (DeltaES). 1981 Nov., 13, 103-125.
Stelzmann, Rainulf A. "Die Nichtigkeit und Grosse des Selbst: Walker Percys
Anthropologie"
Stimmen-der-Zeit, 8000 Munich 19, Germany (SZ). 1983 Nov., 201:11,
785-788.
Zamora, Lois Parkinson "The Reader at the Movies: Semiotic Systems in Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and Manuel Puig's La traicion de Rita Hayworth" The American-Journal-of-Semiotics, Davis, CA (AJS). 1984, 3:1, 50-67.
Gordon, Sarah "The News from Afar: A Note on Structure in O'Connor's Narratives" The Flannery-O'Connor-Bulletin, Milledgeville, GA (FCB). 1985, 14, 80-88.
Ciuba, Gary M. "The Fierce Nun of The Last Gentleman: Percy's Vision of Flannery O'Connor" The Flannery-O'Connor-Bulletin, Milledgeville, GA (FCB). 1986, 25, 57-66.
Desmond, John "Walker Percy and T. S. Eliot: The Lancelot Andrewes Connection" The Southern-Review, Baton Rouge, LA (SoR). 1986 Summer, 22:3, 465-477.
Archer, Emily "Naming in the Neighborhood of Being: O'Connor and Percy on Language" Studies-in-the-Literary-Imagination, Atlanta, GA (SLitI). 1987 Fall, 20:2, 97-108.
Brinkmeyer, Robert H., Jr."Walker Percy's Lancelot: Discovery through
Dialogue"
Renascence:-Essays-on-Value-in-Literature, Milwaukee, WI (Renascence).
1987 Fall, 40:1, 30-42.
Pearson, Michael "Language and Love in Walker Percy's The Second Coming" Southern-Literary-Journal, Chapel Hill, NC (SLJ). 1987 Fall, 20:1, 89-100.
Browning, Preston "Walker Percy and Gabriel Marcel: The Dialectical Self in The Moviegoer" Renascence:-Essays-on-Value-in-Literature, Milwaukee, WI (Renascence). 1988 Summer, 40:4, 279-287.
Ciuba, Gary M. "Lancelot's New World of Language" Notes-on-Mississippi-Writers, Hattiesburg, MS, 39406-5037 (NMW). 1988, 20:1, 1-7.
Scullin-Esser, Kathleen "Connecting the Self with What Is Outside the Self in The Thanatos Syndrome" Renascence:-Essays-on-Value-in-Literature, Milwaukee, WI (Renascence). 1988 Winter, 40:2, 67-76.
Derwin, Susan "Orality, Aggression, and Epistemology in Walker Percy's Second Coming" Arizona-Quarterly, Tucson, AZ (ArQ). 1989 Summer, 45:2, 63-99.
Greiner, Norbert "Peter Handke als Ubersetzer Walker Percys" German-Life-and-Letters, London WC1 B 5DP, England (GL&L). 1990 July, 43:4, 372-386.
Bigger, Charles. "Language in the Work of Walker Percy." Faith & Culture (Baton Rouge, LA), Vol. 1, No. 3, Nov.-Dec., 1990, pp. 5-6.
Westarp,-Karl-Heinz "Lost in the Cosmos: Place in Walker Percy"
The
Dolphin:-Publications-of-the-English-Department,-University-of-Aarhus, 8000
Aarhus C, Denmark (Dolphin). 1991 Spring, 20, 108-17.
Poteat, Patricia Lewis. Walker Percy and the Old Modern Age: Reflections on Language, Argument, and the Telling of Stories. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.
Taylor, L. Jerome. In Search of Self, Life, Death, and Walker Percy. Cambridge, MA: Crowley Publications, 1986.
Howland, Mary Deems.The Gift of the Other: Gabriel Marcel's Concept of Intersubjectivity in Walker Percy's Novels. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1990.
Hardie, Joseph Keith, Jr. "Mouthers and Unmakers': Theories of Language in the Work of Flann O'Brien, Walker Percy, and Charles Tomlinson" DAI. 1984 May, 44:11, 3380A.
Smith, Tyler Przekop "Walker Percy's Fiction: The Vision of Distance" DAI 1985 Aug., 46:2, 426A-427A.
Gunter, Elizabeth Ellington "The Critical Response to Philosophical Ideas in
Walker Percy's Novels"
DAI 1986 July, 47:1, 178A.
Howland, Mary Deems "The Gift of the Other: Gabriel Marcel's Concept of Intersubjectivity in Walker Percy's Novels" DAI . 1986 Dec., 47:6, 2158A.
Wulfsberg, Martha Montello "The Divided Self in the Fiction of Walker Percy" DAI . 1988 Feb., 48:8, 2064A.
Scullin-Esser, Kathleen "Art and Strategy in Walker Percy's 'Lancelot': Visiting the Region of the Dead" DAI. 1988 Oct., 49:4, 817A.
Futrell, Ann Mace. "The Signs of Christianity in the Work of Walker Percy" (The University of Alabama) DAI . 1990 Nov., 51:5, 1593A.
Humble, Thomas Edward. "Language Play in Three Novels by Walker Percy" (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). DAI 1992 Jan, 52:7, 2553A. DAI No.: DA9135271.
Misc. Related
1993