Bergsonian "vitalism" challenged the dominance of Spencerian determinism in the early twentieth century and seemed to offer a new foundation for belief in human freedom and individual possibility. Quirk traces the impact of Bergsonism upon the American sensibility and shows how individual writers -- particularly two such different artists as Willa Cather and Wallace Stevens -- appropriated vitalistic notions and made them serve the peculiar requirements of their own unique creative imaginations.

Originally published in 1990.

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