In the summer of 1958, John Gardner, at that time still an unpublished author, happened to teach writing to Raymond Carver in Chico State College in California, a meeting which has won its own modest place in American literary legend. But behind the "surface" story of Carver trying his hand at serious writing in his teacher's borrowed office (where he discovered boxes containing Gardner's own unpublished material), and even behind Carver's open and unqualified acknowledgement of indebtedness to his tutor, one traces a stronger, if less obvious, connection, a shared vision and shared dilemma. -- The present study aims to examine the works of John Gardner (1933-1982) and Raymond Carver (1938-1988) against the literary output of other American writers of their generation (referred to as Generation '31 by Jerome Klinkowitz, and represented by writers such as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon and Donald Barthelme).