On the Literary Influences of Cormac McCarthy

One thing we learn from a study of influence is that critics do not approach reading in the same way that an artist does, or at least not in the way the artist Cormac McCarthy does. For instance, Rick Wallach, in an essay exploring kinships between Blood Meridian and Beowulf, discusses how both works depict martial codes. As a critic, he is inter­ested in particular in how Beowulf gives rise to ideas in McCarthy’s novel. However, looking at the references to the poem in McCarthy’s notes, we find nothing about martial codes, no notes-to-self about ex­posing the “contagion of systematized violence” in Beowulf.