ESC
Volume 25.2, June 1999
Abstract
Barry Asker, Lingnan University
The 'Impish Drolleries' of Exotic Knowledge: Troilism, Trilogies, and Triads in Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies completed three trilogies and was probably working on a fourth at the time of his death. His focus on the number three in a variety of forms and under a number of guises -- trilogies (three-in-a-bed), and triadism (saintly criminality) -- represents a recurrent trope in the fiction that is linked to his personal quest for Jungian / alchemical self-realization and human completeness. Whereas this creates a rich, often vital, and highly entertaining series of inter-linked fictions, the arcane and exotic knowledge upon which the presentation relies reveals the limitations of Davies's preoccupations. (169-192)