THE ORIGIN OF TARZAN
The Mystery of Tarzans Creation Solved
Sarkis Atamian
![The Origin Of Tarzan The Mystery Of Tarzans Creation Solved - image 1](/uploads/posts/book/387291/images/logo.jpg)
PO Box 221974 Anchorage, Alaska 99522-1974
ISBN 1-888125-12-8
eBook ISBN 978-1-59433-447-4
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-65127
Copyright 1997 by Sarkis Atamian
First Edition
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in any form, or by any mechanical or electronic means including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, in whole or in part in any form, and in any case not without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Dedication
To: My sister Stella, brother Harold, and boyhood chums of Douglas Avenue growing up in the Great Depression of the 1930s. If life was joyful during the struggle in the jungles of Poverty in the Providence, Rhode Island of those days, it was because Tarzan inspired us to growl, Kagoda which meant, Do you surrender? in the language of the Great Apes.
To: The memory of Johnny Weissmuller who was our Tarzan of the day and whose famous yell of Ah oo ah we, too, shouted as the sound of triumph.
To: The memory of Edgar Rice Burroughs who knew that the heart of every kid, young and old, had an hidden ape inside, as any mother would gladly testify.
To: Mr. George T. McWhorter, gentleman and scholar, whose years of leadership and dedicated service to the worlds largest collection of literature on Burroughs has kept Tarzan alive for all of us in our search for Opar.
Y oung Tarzan, in Jungle Tales, senses and seeks God because he wants to know what, or who, is more powerful and mightier than he. In the cover illustration scene by Sarkis Atamian, Tarzan, flanked by his faithful comrades, challenges the moon in the language of the Great Apes?
Foreword
E dgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) remains a literary phenomenon whose genius has inspired an army of eager imitators as well as an opposing army of detractors. But all genius must have its roots in existing ideas and influences, and few Burroughs scholars have come closer to the mark than Sarkis Atamian in tracing these roots. The Origin of Tarzan must surely be added to the existing reference sources as a milestone of research and enlightenment.
Genius is a term generally reserved for those whose mental faculties are not understood, and therefore mysterious. Yet Goethes Faust stood on the shoulders of Marlowe and Lessing, and Miltons immortal Paradise Lost found its seed in du Bartas Divine Weekes and Workes, so the question of origins has always been an interesting path for critics and scholars to explore. With few exceptions, five generations of critics have laid much of Burroughs inspiration at the doorsteps of Kipling, Haggard, and Wells. But Mr. Atamian points the arrow directly at two lesser known writers, Paul Du Chaillu and J. W. Buell, as the major sources, both direct and subliminal, of the Burroughs mind-fix. He shows that Buell and Du Chaillu provided essential background reading which Burroughs used systematically for his themes, situations and, significantly, for his nomenclature.
Du Chaillus books on Africa exploration provided the scientific community with virtually all that was known about Great Apes for over a century, until the modern field work of Dian Fossey and her successors. Atamians arguments are backed with solid evidence from the books of these two men, as well as from the writings of the great explorer, Henry M. Stanley, who was at the zenith of his popularity in Burroughs time. Copious citations from the major biographers of Burroughs, notably Irwin Porges and Richard A. Lupoff, are also included.
Even if you have only a nodding acquaintance with the Tarzan books, you may have wondered how the Tarzan theme has grown to mythological proportions in the modern world; why the Disney Studios and other television conglomerates still vie for the rights to film the Tarzan legend. Burroughs once observed that the best we can do is cloak the same old ideas with new and attractive clothing... which echoes Platos statement in his Symposium that creativity and originality is the recombining of old elements into new and different forms. Mr. Atamian has put forth his obverse-reverse principle, showing how Burroughs created artistic verisimilitude by juxtaposing or inserting letters and syllables into his fictional names to make them seem familiar to readers. The examples he cites may surprise many Burroughs fans, for they are well known and immediately recognizable.
The author also touches briefly on the question of racism, urging us not to remove the head instead of the headache in viewing the past by todays standards and finding little of value in it. This is a major contribution to Burroughs scholarship as well as a good read for those who normally shun books on literary criticism. I, for one, am delighted to welcome it to my bookshelf.
George T. McWhorter, Curator
Burroughs Memorial Collection
University of Louisville
Preface
I n the 1930s, as a boy, I had read and reread every book the local public libraries had on African adventurehunting, natural history, natives, and explorationwhether fact or fiction. I had not read any Tarzan stories because the libraries did not have them. Tarzan was considered too controversial. When I saw the first Johnny Weissmuller movie, about the Lord of the Jungle, I knew I had to read Burroughs.
It wasnt easy in those days for a kid to earn twenty five cents which is what my first used copy in Grosset and Dunlap edition cost me. The sources which influenced Burroughs were quite obvious to me. In fact, I was delightfully surprised at what Edgar Rice Burroughs (here after called, ERB) had done with one source I felt sure was the inspiration for his Tarzan idea. So what? Didnt everybody know and what difference did it make? Didnt we all get our ideas from someone else? Why was such an influence important? There were so many similarities in things African among the many persons, places, and things I had read about by then, that the only thing which mattered was how well did any of them hold my interest? ERB fascinated meand thats all that counted.
It wasnt until many years later, during my adulthood, that I became aware of the serious ongoing discussion about such an influence. I didnt like it. ERB and Tarzan were my boyhood heroes and they had given me so much pleasure that to take them apart now, in the name of literary research seemed sacrilegious, futile, irrelevant, or all three. Besides, what disturbed me were the thinly disguised snide remarks I read, or heard, constantly ridiculing Tarzan, or ERB. Couldnt the critics understand what my heroes were really all about? What simple, single influence could really explain the mysteries of ERBs creative genius which left an image in me I knew was not real but felt real, and should have been even if it wasnt? For me, it was a kind of mystical reality somewhere between out there and in here.
Today, Tarzans universally popular appeal is as great as always, although recent movies have modified his image. He is now seen as a politically correct, virtually unisexed wimp.
Scholars are still intrigued with the problem of influence on ERBs imagination which created Tarzan. Research continues unabated and, in my opinion, and with due respect, still misses the mark. What follows is my contribution to this research. I do it for only one reason: to discharge the debt of gratitude of an aging man to his boyhood hero. Let the chips fall where they may.
Next page