Some Impressions of the Buddha: Dreiser and Sir Edwin Arnold's the Light of Asia

Abstract

Since the early nineteenth century, a small but influential minority of American writers and intellectuals has responded with varying degrees of intensity to the religious and philosophical traditions of Asia. One of these authors is Theodore Dreiser. His literary use of Hindu teachings in The Stoic (1947) is well known and has been evaluated by a number of critics.1 The strong interest in Buddhism expressed in his non-fiction, on the other hand, has largely escaped attention.