I^eport^r - The Key Reporter

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I^eport^r
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VOLUME XLIII ? NUMBER ONE ? AUTUMN 1977
PHI BETA KAPPA AND ACADEMIC STANDARDS
Deteriorating
their impact
been issues
level
of
academic standards and
liberal
on
education
of much concern at
the Phi Beta Kappa
have
every
the
basic definition
Additional
They
the
were
have
arts curriculum
constitu
to
subject of a
vocational majors
wide-ranging discussion at the 1976
Triennial Council in Williamsburg.
The
come
the liberal
from the
they
which
programs
are
heavily
narrowly specialized
Current financial stringencies
another factor in the erosion of
courses.
indicate that
almost all
have been
dealing
Society have
inquiries
the campus
are
with related
And individual
problems.
many
to the
questions
of
legislators
"productivity,"
as measured
by
enroll
has led to competition among
divisions and departments. Faculty
members feel impelled to develop
courses with popular appeal, less
office.
"Grade Inflation and Aca
Dr. Howard R.
demanding
assignments and generous
Standards."
demic
grading
Swearer, Phi Beta Kappa Senator and
President of Brown University, was
chairman of
the
session.
Participating
him were Professor William
Vincent of Michigan State University,
Professor Harry G. Day of Indiana
University, and Dr. Kenneth Greene,
Secretary of the United Chapters.
There
that the
was general agreement
frequently noted
declining standards
most
example of
inflation
grade
campuses.
Each
emphasized,
method of
"tinkering
of
the
however,
with
system,"
affected
grading
highly
only the
Phi Beta Kappa
sisted
grips with
underlying this
panelists cited
the
of
identifying
have
chapters
in meeting their
and
most
complexities
the 1973-76 trien
up to the 1973-76
and
triennium, the number of
bers elected increased in
new mem
each succes
sive year.
In the 1973-76 triennium,
however,
that
pattern was reversed.
1975-76, 15,754.
Nor
are new members
basis
the
being
their
of
elected
grades.
solely
on
Many
chapters give careful attention
to the breadth
didate's
and
difficulty
program, to
recommendations and
honors
of a can
departmental
to the quality
recognizing
students
the highest academic achieve
ments. To deal with grade inflation,
chapters have been raising the mini
mum grade point average
for initial
and
consideration
reducing the
class eligible
for
necessary
for
in
The Society's
tional
a given
This tightening of standards is
revealed in the number of new mem
bers elected. United Chapters records
show that from 1952 through 1976 the
commitment
is
policies
actions of
to its tradi
in the
Qualifica
also reflected
the Committee
on
tions. When studying applications for
charters, the committee has main
tained its
with
rule
strong
member
percentage of a
election
members.
that only institutions
in the liberal
programs
for
be
to
arts and sciences are
considered
In response to re
quests from the Council and the
Senate, the committee is also review
ing its constitutional mandate to study
new chapters.
chapters where
existing
deterioration
there may
numbers of members elected
annually
consistently with increases
in the enrollments of the sheltering
institutions and with the addition of
fairly
From
there
tion
The
the abolishing of dis
phenomenon.
recent surveys and
correspondence and
are
indications that
has levelled
from
chapter
1976-77 reports,
off and
grade
that
infla
some
is being undertaken.
institutions have begun
curricular reform
quirements as perhaps the
to
reinstate general education and
cause of grade
tribution
in
and general education re
primary
inflation. When stu
are permitted
courses
in
which
areas
they
to
choose all
their
that interest them
likely
are
to
do
condition
ship.
work
Dropping
confident of
well,
quality
the
sciences and
the
language
eliminating foreign
mathematics requirements
and
their ability to judge the
maintaining
standards and
by
for
mem
rigorous
encouraging the
cur
liberal education,
Phi Beta Kappa may now have the
opportunity
social
threaten
while not
rent reassessment of
core of required
natural sciences and
By
dis
mandatory
seem more
of students eligible
bership.
traditional scholar
in the humanities, the
Chapters,
excessively optimistic,
obviously will get higher grades.
It is clear that more troubling than
inflated grades are the implications of
this
requirements and
courses.
writing
and
they
for
be
of standards.
number of
dents
of
Several, such as those at
Stanford, Indiana, and Ohio State have
devised new methods of evaluating the
work.
A
tribution
In
1973-74, 17,184 new members were
elected; in 1974-75, 16,173; and in
per
responsibilities
with
rose
failed to
visible symptom and
to
usual
the situation,
the mechanics of the
with
coping
these difficulties
of
year.
speakers
that the
Since 1952
nium.
academic performance of potential
ship
was a serious problem on most
practices.
In the face
with
come
that
ment,
At Williamsburg, the Conference of
Chapter Delegates was devoted to the
topic
The insistence of state
funding be based on
standards.
members of
addressed
these
about
Washington
chapters
new chapters until
professional and
in
weighted with
the
annual reports of
units
the
to take
expected
liberal learning.
pressures upon
shift of students
ency.
of
Professor William Vincent of Michigan
State University participates in the
Council
panel
discussion.
www.pbk.org
www.pbk.org
and
the obligation,
secretary has said, "to
its principles operative on the
chapter
as one
make
campus."
do"
the Jeffreyan "This
THE DEMANDS OF POETRY ON CRITICISM
Wordsworth's Excursion, the
said of
by Helen Vendler
I
should
like to look
briefly
says
at a
number of
contemporary American
poets who
have
with new
Their
new poetics.
perennial
new
demands
of
form. The first, elementary demand is
always "What does the poem
say?"
and source
study, paraphrase, and
annotation rise to meet it. The second
demand is "How does it say
it
what
Frost. It
says
the
new art
any
are
one,
refusal of
Month to
son's wish
differently,
comes
Stevens'
even
Since
language,
form,
explications, studies of
it.
structure, and technical
that question. The third
demand is "Who is this
that question
and
judgments
produces
definitions. It is the
poets themselves who license us, their
audience, to this last freedom of
who ask us
legitimate
pride
as
to
in their
confirm
own
Hopkins, for instance,
Bridges for
the
liking
not
Deutschland,"
as
proudly to
having
their
triumphs,
of
"Lapis
"To
of
as
for his
Keats copies out
brother George in Kentucky.
that I
have
who
read all
written."
have
Believable
judgments
responsible
have,
at
and
has
if the
written.
poet
long loved,
is
one
penumbra, there lies
demand poetry
was uttered
one other
makes of
by
torso
it is the demand that
life. Not
the
poet
way
as
there is a
the irresistible
by
the
for
and
that demand in
mind
a critic
of
in
brought
speak of
himself,
legitimately
of
to the poets
it only
feeling
for
criticism
by book,
that
he
reading first editions of
A Lume Spento, or The Waste Land,
and
and
All,
there is
the
in their
can
with
who
Harmonium,
or
still no
than to
handle these
their
of
to
go
book
single volumes
temporary
air,
self-presentation,
free
from the rather intimidating canonical
form and printed ugliness of volumes
of collected poems. The demands
poetry makes,
when
it is
altogether
fresh,
are so strenuous
result
only too frequent lapses
that there
part when we are unable
these
new
demands. The
to
most
reviewers of new
dismissal
of
poems,
Keats
as a
but
poets
And
ones can.
so
be the
is
not
the
review of current poetry.
most pleasurable
most profound;
task,
It
nor
for profundity
and
leisure
write at
is
on a poet whose work
be
complete and whose career can
known
deeply
matches
the
and well.
Yet nothing
excitement of
book,
seeing
a
and
attempting
to rise to its demands. And so I would
like to sketch some of the questions
raised for me by the work of six poets
wonderful new
Berryman, Plath, Ginsberg, Merrill,
who have published
Rich, Lowell
books during the
time I
have been
criticism and reviews.
writing
read
the
Berryman
half-way
when
mark.
Full
he
of
for Homage to Mistress
admiration
in
Bradstreet, the long
poem
Berryman takes on,
as an alter
self and voice of our
poet
which
ego, the
seventeenth-
Anne Bradstreet
while
twentieth-century
voice as well, I hurried back to early
Berryman, only to find that the cup
board was bare, or rather, so to speak,
that funeral baked meats had coldly
furnished forth the marriage tables; I
found imitation Yeats, imitation
Auden, imitation Hopkins, but hardly
own
anything to equal the real Berryman
in Homage. What critic, given Berry-
full of pastiche, to
have been tempted
And yet,
to say, "This will never
while I was feeling disappointed by
man's
first
volume,
review, would not
do?"
on our
rise
errors of criticism are not all
live
can
keeping his
those
a rare
in despair. Dead
protest;
century
or
better way to
probable emotions of
frailty,
or
White Buildings;
or
off-
damning,
and
was at
goes on
publishing lifetime. An
had the
North of Boston,
for whom these labors
labors of love, poets
often
wary, still, of the critic's
I began to
partial critical
privilege of
their modesty
Vendler, of Boston University,
delivered this lecture, now reduced by
one-half, as a <t>BK Visiting Scholar in
1976-77. lt was set in type before the
recent death of Robert Lowell.
Professor
book
pedants) "Did
their
most
new
the
walk
pleasure, any critic would rather
inescapably
plentitude of
problem
of
a poet's
room and
this
and
difficulty
during
they
they
hazardous, most difficult,
most demanding task for criticism
the
the
this is the
expression.
earlier critics
have caused
it in him. It is a happiness or a
solacing, says Keats, like Adam's
dream when he awoke and found it
respect
own,
ourselves more
and
self-contradictory
relive
beauty. It is hardest
to
know
the inexhaustible
Spring
each
confrontation with
rearrangement
speak
It
and undeniable re
achieved aesthetic
of all
Apollo,
Rilke, but in
the
of
earlier generation of critics
testimony speaking
arrangement of
about
of
feelings
cannot
or half-
buried
what would
of classical
rhymed out
our
mapping,
critic.
we change our
all poets put
same
the
Rilke through his
oracular archaic
our
important, because constitutive,
demand poetry places upon us. We
have not read a poem until we know
both its strangeness and its familiarity.
Also, as our own feelings change, so
is the
poets, or
verses
from the outside, the lines which they,
the poets, to quote Yeats again,
most vivid and
and more strange
One continuing
from
the
in
lack. The
exposition
and yet that we recognize
as
"Lord,
remain
periphery."
center
critics and
the-cuff review, praising or
further than
into the
feelings
its
to
force to
most
and
rise
exists a natural
scholars and
have been
favorite poems, and the motive
keeps poets writing until their
deaths keeps us reading until ours
saying "here
is the essence, here is the
Beyond that discerning of
that
alone must
we see
therefore
truly
enmity between
between
scholar-critics
which
Only then, and only
long known and
can we risk
gives
conscious or cognate ones of our
do
the
very least, to be based on just that
our having read everything that the
poet
terms
feelings,
others
and
Though the demand poetry makes on
us to judge is an enfranchising, it is
also a burden. Yeats dedicated his
Vision "To those few people, mainly
friends,
credences of art
objective
these
the idea that there
Though poetry has been preserved,
collected, edited, annotated, explained,
and transmitted, in great part, by
to the
Fidelity
feeling
oscillations of
Lazuli,"
Autumn"
personal
ours."
them
can name
own
are all
way?"
says
"It takes so
Yeats somewhere, "to know what the
feelings we are having are before we
the
these
have set
have given
that
teeth on edge and
their Catullus
it
intellectual
personal and perhaps alien
Lady Dorothy Wellesley
completed
feeling,
more primitive
social or
demand that
rebukes
"The Wreck
Yeats writes
far
of
ratifications.
and
judgment,
the primacy
long,"
his
poet, at
responses
(said Yeats
lyric poetry insists funda
on
level than do
best?"
review of
Harmonium
say"
ratifies us at a
meet
first
teach:
most
mentally
Higgin-
Dickinson's
correct
poets'
says?"
and
to
The
periodical
Hopkins, T. W.
Burnshaw's
grammar,
from the same poem, at different times.
It is the only reason to write interpreta
tions for others to read, and yet it is
the despair of every interpreter to
express
the Jesuit
print
says
Stevens; it shores up our ruins, says
Eliot; it is a stay against confusion,
attitudes, and
poems make
the Imagination
and
confronted criticism
forms,
knowing what good means,
Hopkins, or knowing that God
truth; it is
will never
to
famous
still, the
Cockney
the
earliest
Songs
by
poet,
Berryman,
the Dream
waiting in the wings,
their marvellous invention of the
were
comic, incorrigible
Henry
and
with
sad,
his
THE KEY REPORTER
www.pbk.org
www.pbk.org
minstrel-show
blackface
In Berryman's
almost
expansion of
77 Dream
400-odd songs
His Rest,
conscience.
frightening
Songs into the
His Toy, His Dream,
of
published
in 1968,
reviewers
saw a new major expression of
the
boastfulness,
gaiety
defiant
or a
a wistful and
sly
compelling readers with him
trips, fantasies, marriages,
presence
through
binges,
breakdowns, a
grants,
affairs, arrests, and
voice so
insistent it
never asked whether anyone cared
listen,
to
to
shy that it hesitated
without immediate
and yet so
utter a word
self-reproof and pangs of conscience.
The infantile
omnipotence
man was matched
by his
in
Berry
childish
polymorphous pleasures, and an
unashamed greediness played
out
in dialogue
by
that
dialogue,
for interpreters
question
itself
with a sterner con
science, raising,
is
a
our
His
to have
appetite
his
for love
fame
all
all
the
in his
poems
next-to-last volume of poems,
put some reviewers off.
The
ance of a conscience at
the
poem, or at the end of a
matter, does not
appear
end of a
life for that
obliterate
those
had
been powerless to prevent.
Crane's transcendent voyages in verse
do not reproduce the intermittent
earlier
his life, but
are a faithful
poems
Berryman knew it.
"When Shakespeare said, 'Two loves
have,'
I
(Berryman once wrote)
and
"
"reader, he
man, in
his
kidding."
was not
Berry
horrors,
Henry's
But if the
horrors in life must
stories of
kidding
was not
either.
response to such
be therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous,
hospitalization, jail, and finally suicide,
what
is the
critic's response
to the art
narrating them? Is it sentimental to be
endlessly forgiving and sympathetic?
Is what is so easily named "the
disjoined from
in life? These
arguments have to be faced by critics
of Berryman (and of Lowell, and of
so
our response
Sexton,
to
some of
name
the
critics must
terminal
to
events
two
others who raise
same problems), and
the
likewise face Berryman's
religious reversion,
in
as
I then thought, too
AUTUMN,
explicit.
relationship,
toil,
Plath's first
book, of reconstructing the Colossus.
The soul is repetitiously being initi
akin
to the
seen
in the title-poem
ated
into
endless repetitive
of
horror, always
horror-struck,
a communal
in danger, endlessly
vehicle, recognizing fully the
worldly milieu of the poems and the
deadly
mocking sophistication of that milieu
in its discussions of passion, while
is clearly coextensive
in spite of gestures of
repudiation, she cannot get free. We
are invited to watch Sylvia Plath
trance
with
which
life,
watching
and
herself,
that the
Provocative, impulsive,
fever, hospitalization
at
once,
Merrill's
real and
into
gilded
allowing it to
distance,
gauzy
flashing
and
into
subside
Midas
it
dust,
death. But the imperti
Merrill's language
off, too long, from his inner and
(whether from
with electro
convulsive
therapy,
or
disruption
childbirth)
states
in
which
to
stand
for the
natural
then
of
poems are often written about
states of physical pain
spangled and yet
appearances,
the tone
and
dispassionateness and even
detached curiosity that accompanies
so many of the horrific revelations in
Plath's poetry arises from the fact
admitting inwardly that passion, to
the sufferer, is never sophisticated.
mind
fixity
and watch
burn,
or abase
body
the
by
it is
off in
writhe, or
itself. However, if it is
more nostalgic
the greatest poetry to convince
that everything is true, or, as Yeats
put it quoting Blake, that everything
possible to be believed is an image of
by
the
or
nence, almost, of
me
part of
put
harmonies; now, won
harmonies, I see the conversa
the
the poems, especially in his
Divine Comedies, as the most
of
new
thrown carelessly
a chair.
The
flippantly
earnest
over
in
winning; in
what seems a brittle-
has
put off,
me
Plath and Rich I had read earlier than
Merrill and Berryman. I read them
specially because they were women
my generation. We do not yet have,
apparently, all of
truths
are
the truths
they
of
loss
of
Plath's finished
lack as yet
passion,
historically,
rank of
her
remain
the
Blake,
poetic
home,
no
adequate
The
journals,
of composition.
for
excessive.
Plath's
sort of
poems,
than
so
far
Plath, has
one
criticism
mentioned
An
for
unmoder-
needs
the edge
of
in
in
oneself and
see what she writes as
fixed,
poems are
now
savage,
I first felt them to
them as a different
or so
I
see
lyric. They
are not occasional
commemorating a given
they do not embody passing
moment:
1977
www.pbk.org
www.pbk.org
as pure
down,
the
the
poet
not yet
a contempo
life
that many
generation
at all
order even
poetry
fact. But Rich has
with great
she
One
difference between
of
the
that
odd problem
I have
arises
usual practice
by
electric
power which suggests
will continue writing.
for
less
a
nonetheless a
problem of shared experience.
by
will
of what
seems
where we
response, a
liberator
find a modulation
fluctuation of feeling,
Judged
ultimate
rary woman interpreter, if I am
typical, in the case of Rich: the
unrelenting, their emotions
lyric,
the
Sylvia Plath
seem
criticism
is that they
Their intensity
poems
or
with awe mixed with some
staying
her letters
and not even an
chronology
problem posed
Plath's
some of
indifference
revulsion, named the Female Will.
poet
which alone makes certain poems
of
whatever
poetry,
Adrienne Rich,
have only
and absence or of
This is a remark that can be made of
all but the very greatest poetry, and
that knowledge
of manuscript work
they
of
poems, and we certainly
clear; we
embody, whether
of murderousness or
energy or of apathy,
remain convincing in their eternity
but shrunken in their totality. Her
poetry is, in the end, less than life is.
of
initially,
but I think he has
taught us, by now, to read him as a
new alchemist of love and irony.
that
besides
others
ing
intolerable presence,
immediately
ness of wit
truth, then Plath's poems of stasis
hopelessness are not entirely
satisfactory. The partial and despair
victimage,
always childlike and
Merrill there is
us
and
overlays, a trans
exquisite of casual
parent shawl
be. But
When I first reviewed Merrill, I found
him both too difficult and at the same
unsettling
supple
unmoving
still unsolved.
and
pain,
in
perpetually enslaved, eternally con
fined. In each of the poems, the
speaker is embedded in some hopeless
ated.
language, before his death.
The mystery of the hollow failure of
some of the last Berryman poems is
time,
laughter,
mixed an
fixities,
so much as mental
irony with his sentiment,
decoration with his passion, narrative
with his lyric, and chit-chat with his
myths. This pot-pourri of the social,
the theatrical, and the intimate in
Merrill, which I found almost indeco
rous on first exposure, seems, the
second time round, to be a new and
senti
ment and
say
"masked,/
was
amount of
response"
aesthetic
in
Yet Merrill
therefore
account of representative errors and
escapades,
who was not,
love."
was not
who could
words,
thathis lover
Berryman is
violence of
Berryman's
As
feelings
permanent crucifixions
a poet who could use
old well-worn
tion
words and acts which conscience
fumbling
for
touch through the world,
and
the girls, to write
he resurrected it
as
language, I
private
prepared
serious poems reach with a
pleasure as polymorphous as
experience?
Stevens'
outright
American voice, coming from a soul
miserably consumed by guilt yet
capable of a mad
Used to Crane's hermetic visions, to
Eliot's and Pound's allusiveness, to
to
and not
written
accuracy
of
women of
detail,
my
have led. She went to
fell in love; she had
college; she
visions of grand personal
she went abroad; she was
possibility;
lonely;
she
decided she was American nonetheless
for all the seductions of Europe; she
experienced disaffection from her
rising painfully to become part of the
white-collar class; the inevitable
parents; she married; she tried mother
on alcoholism and
hood
immigrants
demands;
disturbed
she was
her
up; she
Criticism
seemed
she
her
found herself
marriage end, and
children grow
alone.
by the
in marriage;
separateness possible
saw
its
by
and was shocked
to me
these
of
poems
first scarcely
at
to the extent of underlining or
checking lines in each new book. And
for seventeen years, in fact, I nodded
except
my head
and subscribed
to that truth
cence
acquies
my
what Rich had
of
in the
insantity
pride
scholarship to
college; the son's talent recognized
praised; the son's graduation; the
and
acceptable
job in the
(Ginsberg's
white-collar
was
market-
it is the story of half of
research)
the families in America, the Horatio
Alger story, the story of most of
Ginsberg's friends. And what was the
In the famous opening lines
Howl:
of
Then, to my surprise, she
became polemically and politically
I
feminist, both
starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the
her
in her poetry
The
prose.
her
problem
for
activism posed
is
critics
political
still alive
the
all of
found
better
poems, I
new
the
much of
nonetheless
And
Robot
because it
of
decoration is
more understated
memories are
there,
old
there in
still
form;
the
all
denied;
none
and
though the story is ongoing, the
primitive characters remain
the
same
differently
the scenario, though
and
recognizable skeleton.
seen, retains a
The chiefly domestic metaphors in
which her themes are embodied may
seem as alien
to
critics who are men
the metaphors,
as some of
hunting,
male poets, of
To
by
combat, and
wilderness-travel seem
are women.
used
to
critics who
write criticism about a
to
poetic voice we need
feel it
not
wholly different from our own.
Women are socialized into the world
of men,
more
by
than
domestic
literature
as
by life,
men are socialized
and
familial
far
into the
world of women.
Perhaps the full understanding by
each sex of the voice of the other will
have to await a socialization which
brings the sexes together rather than
distinguishes them from one another.
Among
first
the
recent
multitudes
and although
blamed
ble
poets, no one was, on
appearance, more a scandal
on
words
clothes
than Allen
the
scandal
to
Ginsberg,
has been
everything from unprinta
to Ginsberg's taking off his
in public, the
in any attempt to
lay in the aspects
of
life
and
suburbs!
treasuries!
capitals!
invincible
But it
demonic industries!
madhouses!
was not these general
indict
fixed Ginsberg in the
public mind, but rather the revelation
of what went on in the houses of
America, the family romance brought
ments which
to its
conclusion of mutual
Ginsberg's
and repentance.
portraits
Max
and
torment
family
Naomi, Louis, Eugene,
are in
Eleanor, Aunt Rose
American poetry to stay, a gallery of
misspent lives, viewed in a mixture of
pathos, sadness,
disgust,
anger,
the
and
But these
family
portraits
obliged
to include
order
at
first unsettling in lyric. Did they
to embody them
belong
in
But the
soon as
it
some
seemed
Dostoevskyan
was posed:
Ginsberg's
but lyric.
The details were incidental to the
of his feelings, and outer life
was, in the poetry, the burning glass
history
soul.
kindled
Those
twenty
had
in
some
the
howl in Ginsberg's
poems are now over
years
finding
has
and
demanding
he
escapes our
fit
he is so
his predecessors have
been
and yet he is confined by no
one of the descriptions. He is formal,
he is free; he is backward-looking, he
is revolutionary; he is religious, he is
nihilistic; he is nostalgic, he is
prophetic; he is confessional, he is
impersonal; he is American, he is
admirably
what
European; he is boyish, he is old; he
is frank, he is hermetic; he is the
creator of an unmistakable style, he is
unpredictable in his next form. The
successive efforts of critics
Poems
represent an intimidating-
and a restless creative
force reinventing the
old, and
difficulty
both
in
us,"
"They
bering
Ginsberg has
recent volumes
subjects and passions
win
observations as
ascent,
accompanied
by
an
arms and
clashing
in heaven. Now, making a net,
as he says, to catch like the Quaker
fishermen all the fish in the sea of
life and history, even up to Leviathan,
wars
he
of
works with no props
the occasion, the
susceptible
to the
but the
the
event of
vagaries of
offerings, with no sure guide
inexplicable distinctiveness
"Epilogue,"
the audience, through
simple modes of
often
rhythmic experi
Jewish, his story is uni
the half-immigrant family,
to
the Luciferian
mode
participation, into the
surrealistic, and
remem
"by harshness
was, for a long
motto,
orchestration of
In
their language. Though Ginsberg's
40
world over
Lowell,
says
old
That
embattled
his
his
the
time, his
espoused and
to
memories and
told
the
taste.
their subjects, their details
realistic and
place
critic
versal:
both
to
him are an entertaining spectacle.
Before the most recent essay has
characterized him, he has invented
something else, a hare to the
hounds. His recently-issued Selected
origins are
poems
most
is there to say but
categories? All
what
received categories
go with them, in keeping his poems
from wandering afield, in organizing
in Ginsberg's
mind our greatest
therefore the
new volume
and exposed
him to the
admitted
anthologies.
they become increasingly numerous
and disconnected. At the same time,
he has had more success than any
other poet in his readings, by drawing
declaimed
poet of a wide
stars."
not
question was absurd as
passion was not novelistic
which
the
remains
years.
in
rather
he
even
he describes "These
as
catastrophic emotional
detail the poetry felt
novel?
States,"
intelligence
revulsion, admiration, yearning, and
repudiation.
to the moon);
le bourgeois,
real scandal, as
epater
generation
invisible
contempo
(extending
ambition and scope
the
family
the
recorders of
rary face of America. Except for
Lowell, the other poets of his genera
tion do not aproach his geographic
that
spectral nations!
a
old
apartments!
skeleton
blind
repudiating the former one; the
had driven his
the best
poet
society:
represented a new self without
love
what
print,
never seen
As for Lowell, to my
for
looking
mad was a combination of
more recent verse
than the old. Better
madness,
dawn
but are
His
buoyancy has kept him afloat, his
experimentation has kept him popular,
and his talent has kept him one of
have
that
world
genera
my
angry fix.
an
according to their own response to her
ideology. For myself, while not liking
by
negro streets at
some critics
among us, polarizing
minds of
destroyed
tion
in
and
the best
saw
also composed
impromptu poems,
remarkably witty
audience, and the critical and academic
result?
to tell.
he has
perhaps preserved on tapes.
among
to mind); the
come
son who wins a
world
possible,
toll (Oscar Handlin's statistics
nervous
ence of poetry;
"the
the
poem
mood
day,
history's
but the
of personal
closing his
Day by Day,
Lowell
says
is not a lens";
the camera, "it trembles to
Lowell's poems have
the
painter's vision
unlike
light."
caress
been nakedly
(continued
autobiographical,
on
back cover)
THE KEY REPORTER
www.pbk.org
www.pbk.org
reading
the book
by
recommended
committee
describes
common
the snappy
humanities
DOOB, ANDREW GYORGY,
toward
attitudes
significantly
JAMES C. STONE, ELLIOT ZUPNICK
STEVENS,
them
assigns
prone,
during
RONALD GEBALLE
argues
basic
couples
may be
their positions
each other
by
revealed
He is
sleep.
mummy,
He
wife, etc.).
convincingly that
almost
MADELINE R. ROBINTON, VICTORIA SCHUCK,
RUSSELL B.
(he
full-fetal,
(ostrich,
positions
dutch
sphinx,
EARL W. COUNT, RICHARD BEALE DAVIS,
natural sciences
names of
"exotic"
FREDERICK J. CROSSON
LEONARD W.
positions
royal, and semi-fetal) as well as the
GUY A. CARDWELL, ROBERT B. HEILMAN,
social sciences
he believes to be the
what
sleep
a psychoanalyst and
hence should be the first to suggest that
his name means
in German minus
one of the l's; at the very least he has
"dark"
RUSSELL B. STEVENS
handicap
Changing Rural Landscapes. Ervin H.
Margaret J. Zube. Massachusetts. $10.
This
150
and
too
small
pages, conveys a rather
have been
that seems to
between the
pre
pointed out yet another possible
itself
all
us as an endless
years
1951
They
several of
the
insights,
colorful
Which one or more
for the impact of this
reader
is
unclear.
book is eminently
But
one
no
of
these
matter, the
The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopu
lation and the Origins of Agriculture.
It is unquestionably
informed
an
ideas
accepted
thoroughly
skeptic.
thing
sharp issue with the notion
that agriculture was a discovered tech
nology that spread through the human
that
provided a means
to
substantially increased popula
an invention that im
tion numbers
maintain
lot and opened new oppor
tunities. Rather, he argues, with a welter
of detail that probably detracts even
tually from the impact of the case being
proved man's
made, that
agricultural way of life that was not
necessarily to his advantage. This is
important issue and merits careful
an
Human Aggression.
of
Ashley
Montagu. Oxford. $9.95.
Montagu's volume,
the
one side of
their
disease
essential
beneficial roles. Not all of his
be new to the biologist
reader, but much will be, and in any
event the story is well told. In places I
find the views expressed to be a touch
extreme, such as the
be risky to
smallpox
book is
that it
suggestion
the
cause
virus,
but
on
extinction of
the
the
whole
Indeed, it
Brave People:
and a
Subsistence Hunters in Zambia. Stuart A.
Marks. Washington. $15.
It may well be wise, from time to time, to
look carefully at a very different culture
from one's own, if for nothing else than to
Stuart Marks
his detailed
account of a year or more spent in care
ful analysis of the hunting process in a
reach a new perspective.
this
makes
possible with
very limited
can
fairly
only in conjunction with one
the several volumes by those he
Yet
the "innate
or
read
African Zambia.
area of
The Third
Try
Policy for
an
at
World Order: U.S.
Interdependent World.
A
popularized,
unobstrusively docu
viously
been
this
on
affairs
the
grotesque state of
Ob
have not
war-prone planet.
nationalism
eliminated
by
and war
the League
of
Nations
the United Nations. The Third
Try,
must
according to this political scientist,
recognize the interdependence of man
here
and
the
argu
To
that is
perhaps not
common, the
author
takes
arguments of
address
if the
overly
specific pains
those
his
on
the
attention
to
an extent
review
the
other side and
to them. It is
as
whole volume were a rebuttal,
or his
persuasively put. On whether he
intellectual adversaries are the more
correct rests
nearly
man's
dealing
Insects
and
with
the
critical
issue
Cloudsley-
Thompson. St. Martin's. $18.95.
At first glance this book seems overly
but two elements combine to
the text from this initial view:
(1) the information itself is sufficiently
shake off the
new and interesting as to
pedestrian,
rescue
kind,
the intimate
domestic
relation
and
foreign
to
alleviate
obligation
between
policies, and an
poverty every
where.
The essay is
sloppy
sentiment, rather
not
screaming with
it is packed with
stemming in
part
concrete
suggestions
from the
author's practical experiences
and
sophistication.
of
his fellows.
History. J. L.
him
therapist
how he
and
its
effects
subsequent career as
and scholar.
Some insight is
into Freud from descriptions
reacted
sessions, and
and
his
and
during
from
the
ef
analytic
him
anecdotes about
his adoring disciples in Vienna.
Kardiner, however,
remains elusive.
Although "from my
present vantage
he
point,"
concludes more
century later, "Freud's
than
a
half
analysis was a
done with speed
he adds that one of
Freud's hypotheses about himself "put
me on a wild goose chase for a problem
that did not
brilliant
performance,
accuracy,"
exist."
Mussolini's Roman Empire. Denis Mack
Smith. Viking. $12.95.
indignant, well documented account
how Mussolini "could be strangely
irritated when foreigners spoke to him of
the glories of Italian art and climate,
because he imagined, and resented, that
Italians had the reputation of being dis
inclined to fight and eager for
So that Italians could become
he "determined to change their reputation
and make them less nice, more hateful,
and more
This Oxford historian
relates how a boastful, conceited dictator,
driven by a perhaps pathological desire
to secure homage at home and respect
abroad, pushed his ill-prepared forces
into many countries (Ethiopia, Greece,
Spain, and so on); he perforce allied
himself with Hitler; he ordered the use
of poison gas, though he never achieved
a guerra lampo or a notable victory. He
often fussed more about press releases
than about the crucial military decisions
he himself insisted on making. The role
of the individual here looms large and
An
of
violent."
calls
no pretense
upon
the
the
"healthy,"
and
there is
by
pleasure."
more of
ments are well presented.
account of
and
readable and necessary.
Large Mammals
dignified
Master himself in 1921-22
material will
mented analysis of
quite openly, argues
story.
decay,
modest,
obtained
not enough on
Harlan Cleveland. Aspen Institute for
Humanistic Studies. $3.95.
consideration.
The Nature
much emphasis
LEONARD W. DOOB
tended to force man toward an
selves
in arguing
has been placed
them
population pressures of
brief,
makes a good point
are confronted
Cohen, in this
Freud. A. Kardiner.
with
author's six-month analysis
on microorganisms as agents of
the
when
volume, takes
societies and
Dixon
would
Mark N. Cohen. Yale. $15.
a good
A
Magnificent Microbes. Bernard Dixon.
and
Analysis
and
volume on
the time.
worth
My
Norton. $6.95.
that too
Nostalgia,
evocative
prose,
subjects?
account
to
way
through which we can try, however
vainly, to understand ourselves.
little-known
are
author of
selected pieces.
a new and
Atheneum. $8.95.
by
1968
and
in
light.
published
John B. Jackson, himself the
be
it is
which
parade of governments and wars
taken from a magazine titled Landscape
by
to
often shown
comes alive
new
in
style
(2) human history
modest collection of essays, some
remarkable warmth and charm.
the
the
of
sented and
Sleep
explain
Positions: The Night Language
of
$6.95.
clinical application of a
simple cause-and-effect
doctrine to the
thesis that "our sleep positions are
determined by the essential way we live
After padding
by
scientifically
summarizing
about
a doctrine
determinism.
through
Androgyny: Toward
An
a
New
of
Theory
of
a quarter of
what
sleep, the
is known
author
AUTUMN, 1977
www.pbk.org
www.pbk.org
"extremely
tentative,"
modest, con
fident, unabashedly Jungian defense
the thesis that the "human
of
psyche"
con
tains a non-culturally determined arche
type which is both masculine and
feminine. The
world."
in the
the book
history
economic or social
Sexuality. June Singer. Doubleday. $8.95.
the Body. Samuel Dunkell. Morrow.
An informal,
challenges social scientists who would
cal,
but
is primarily
to historical documents
doctrines (e.g., astrology,
are made
various
evidence
clini
astute, even profound references
and
to
alchemy, Yin/Yang).
definitely
not
Androgyny is
bisexuality; its relevance
to woman's status in
our
society is
hostility, Haight provides, not a complete
biography, but a penetrating exposition
the
the poetry in the light of biographical
facts. Her summation is excellent. A
and
of
not sensationally, not fashion
sensibly
indicated. The book's final
ably
sentence: "Look
of apposite
sprinkling
by
was
Proust's
cook, caretaker, concierge,
courier,
and
rection of
finally
Proust
confidante.
The
Truth to Life: The Art
in
Cock-
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. $3.95.
and
cantly
that
the
surveys
readably
signifi
stan
and
methods, attitudes, commitments,
reticences that influenced Victorian
biographers. Cockshut
biographies
major
and
long
and a
stories,
the "virgin
sonalities
friendships. Superior introduction.
Perceptive
play
who
A
The biographical framework
the works, from the nihilistic genius of
the novels to the paranoia and vulgarity
identifies
elements in Celine,
McCarthy
pamphlets.
religious and comic
his Rabelaisian
and
Joycean
Robin Hood: An Introduction
to the English Outlaw. R. B. Dobson &
J. Taylor. Pittsburgh. $12.95.
Meant mainly for the general reader, this
book opens with a good discussion of the
Robin Hood tradition
and of
its
literary
from late medieval
ballads on through 19th-century verse
and fiction. It reprints 18 "Rymes of
manifestations
Robin
Hood,"
plays, and 5
including
7
one on
songs,"
Work. Ed. Martine de
Informative
by
and analytical essays
(the
Isaiah Berlin, John Lehmann,
caricaturist,
genius), and
figure
who
art, and politics was
man.
Many
literary,
major
life
of
the
balloonist, photographic
biographical sketches of 80
Nadar subjects,
who
include many
of
the
artistic, musical, theatri
intellectual,
figures from
and political
on.
in war,
literature,
resolutely his
own
typos.
"Philosophical
Investigations."
Garth
Hallett. Cornell. $27.50.
Alas for the price (not without
800 pages), this is a work
which every reader trying to wend his
way through the Investigations should
have
or
have
mentary,
with
It
a superb com
overviews and
explications, with
pretation.
to:
access
detailed
information
and
inter
offers cogent expansions of
cryptic passages, accounts of
Wittgenstein
years of official
poet
interesting
most
the
better, because
people and move
time, from John Dewey and
Robert Hutchins to the great books cur
ricula and the re-casting of Britannica 3.
in the academic world but never
domesticated there, his recollections of
Long
Columbia in the twenties
are
and
Chicago in
and
especially revealing
of
those milieux.
Paul Tillich: His Life and Thought. Vol. 1
Life. Wilhelm and Marion Pauck. Harper
& Row. $15.
Preparation for this authorized biography
was begun fifteen years ago via extensive
interviews with its subject and dozens of
his friends
It is
Europe
all over
but not
while it does
a good
the U.S.
and
biography,
excellent
not avoid mentioning
puzzling aspects of Tillich's
personality does not go far in trying to
explain them either. But on the whole, it
which
the
more
an objective and capable account of
the
century's most powerful and
thinkers.
why
he does and
the sources of his
extensive notes
on
thinking. A
first-rate
of
value.
enduring
piece of scholarship,
and
His Apostles. Ved
less familiar biographical facts
or
bounded
by
vivid
farious interviews
disciples, family,
interviews
writing
recounting of multi
with Gandhian
editors,
are always
etc.
While the
interesting
(Mehta's
sags), one can't escape the
never
feeling that Gandi has somehow eluded
him. Perhaps the intent to demythologize
a great soul is bound to leave us with a
sense of
since
issues
a
binocular
the
disparity
particularly
persistent psycho-biographical
are not carried
vitality
which makes
this
Still, there
telling
through.
and power
in the
worth recommending.
of
which attempt
to
overview of a comprehensive
language, modifying
early
More
is
and the
Meaning. Paul Ricoeur. Texas
Christian. $6.
Surplus
Mahatma Gandhi
says what
views
(e.g.
on
give an
philosophy
Ricoeur's
some of
the paradigmatic
the symbol for language theory)
charting further explorations. Over
all, on his trek from phenomenology to
hermeneutics, Ricoeur continues to move
and Logic. Robert S.
Tragesser. Cornell. $9.75.
Phenomenology
A
careful and non-transcendental applica
tion
of phenomenological analysis
to
in the foundations
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status of
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and
ontological relativity.
to structuralism,
while clearly
himself from it. His stead
fast defense of the semantic autonomy of
written discourse and of the
objectivity
of meaning is paired
dialectically with
important Russian
the
much
and worked with some of
Mehta. Viking. $14.95.
some
Amanda Haight. Oxford. $10.
many
Adler battled
A Companion to Wittgenstein's
closer
about an
more about persons and events
original
distinguishing
Writing
bilia is
one of
Anna Akhmatova: A Poetic Pilgrimage.
who survived
Large. Mortimer J. Adler.
at
than ideas. So
is
FREDERICK J. CROSSON
of
and
E. H. Gombrich; the only poor one by
Victoria Ocampo) admirably portray the
remarkable
provides a
Felix (journalist, author,
Four lectures
$12.95.
trans
recognition.
Subtitled "An Intellectual Autobi
this brisk and candid memora
both him
Interpretation Theory: Discourse
Jesse James.
and
cosmol
persuasively that
source from which
beyond easy
often
the thirties
Roland Barthes.
Gosling
versatile
outlaw
Courcel. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
best
by
original critics.
valuable reference work covers
playlets and parts of
"other
Malraux: Life
but
justification, for
games.
attempt
ments of our
encloses an
explication and scrupulous evaluation of
of
essays on major poets
the
cal,
Rymes
Para
350) from the Atelier Nadar, mostly
founder, Felix Tournachon (1820-
(over
by
1850
and
and
splendid collection of photographs
Celine. Patrick McCarthy. Viking. $10.
language
Presence: The Poet
dise Lost. Arnold Stein. California. $10.95.
The Ethic of Time: Structures of
Experience in Shakespeare. Wylie
Sypher. Seabury. $10.95.
1910).
the
of
Nadar. Nigel Gosling. Knopf. $25.
mother"
major
Stoic
ography,"
brings up nieces and nephews, the un
believer who is a saintly priest, the good
doctor who loses patients because he
publishes fantastic fiction, and Cain and
Abel as twins who suffer equally and
whose wives both desire Cain.
of
marriage and
formed,
into the
categories are mined and
Macmillan. $12.95.
criticism of
Anthony
argues
Philosopher
in
happy
the ground from early medieval Latin
works to structuralism and the new
Play.
but Hahn
the Stoic
enter
antecedents of
in judgments,
This very
a
amount of conjecture
sharp in vignettes
and caricatures, diverse in interests
(from gardening to gossip), independent
judges Froude's
explore ambiguous per
compellingly
humor,
of wit and
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of French
Literature. Joyce M. H. Reid. Oxford. $15.
Ficciones: Four Stories and
Miguel de Unamuno. Trans.
Kerrigan. Princeton. $12.50.
A novella, three
Aristotle is the
ogy,
evaluates six
Carlyle the best.
large
These 700 letters, well edited, reveal an
unofficial Virginia Woolf (age 30 to 40)
established
dards,
a
interpretation
and
to trace the
full
essay.
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of
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Virginia Woolf. Vol. II:
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from 1914 to 1922
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The Letters
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within."
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an alternative
The
to Quine's
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was, after all, the theme
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a
with a specific
minutely
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born of protest in 1863 and dead in
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Prison Diaries. Edward Kuznetsov. Stein
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THE DEMANDS OF POETRY
shocks
(continued from
always appetitive
but Lowell's caress of their medium,
language
comic, tragic, mocking,
makes his
ironic, lyric, beautiful
life-studies rival great portraiture.
"We are poor passing
he says;
nobody but a great contemporary
could have found that noun. His
journals in verse chronicle the passing
facts of self and friends and nation;
facts,"
fixing
them in
He is
ear.
phrases
that
that haunt the
so prolific and so
and
each new
book
asks several
only now is Life
Studies wholly absorbed; only now is
History beginning
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and
to
The
blinds
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into
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our
his
verse
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Morris Radoff
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recent resurgence of
this colony and
first
of
biography
the first
Assembly
town)
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remarkable
of
Speaker
legislative
representative
British America (at James
includes in
also
appendix
scholarly writing on
state. Powell's Pory, the
of
microform
Pory's newsy
correspondence.
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are
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will continue
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Prize for his volume Braving the
Elements, the New York Times felt
impelled to print an editorial wishing
that the prize could be given to more
representative American verse, and
not to what it regarded as Eastern
Establishment poetry
a distinction
which really has nothing to do with
the poetry of Merrill, our most dis
tinguished
XLIII
volume
Editor: Evelyn L.
poet of delicately-
of
by
the Fall
the
and
of
Ginsberg's
America
substance of
by
Editorial Committee:
appears
in Notebook
poetry
onwards
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Amnions'
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Frank O'Hara's
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transcriptions
of
daily
happiness, Charles Wright's exactly
collocated burning images, Gary
Snyder's limpid vision, John Ashbery's
purposefully-graphed
fluidity, Charles
Simic's folklore surrealism, Louise
Glick's poised stationing of grieving
figures, Dave Smith's weighted land
scapes
and
these
all of
are mysteries
response
a glass
through the
exploration.
always
to
interpretation
themes
through
darkly,
murk of
beauties
various
awaiting
In
subjects
sees
peering
contemporaneity,
blinded in part by the
historical beams in its
theoretical or
own
eyes, but
I think, pointing out, in
the midst of its mistakes, true things
about the individual poet, American
nonetheless,
art, and contemporary self-conscious
ness.
"Of these
beginnings,
and
gay
green,"
said
Stevens, "propose the
He was talking to
but his
words will
about new
the
books
do for
critics
as well.
suitable amours
We
for
beginnings, and not worry par
ticularly about the outcome: Stevens
these
us, "Time will write them
Provisional and limited, but
all the hope and freshness
assures
down."
with
as
it
asks
for an entire revision of our notions
of lyric structure. And the list of
Hahnert, Robert H. Irrmann, Raymer
Published quarterly (Autumn, Winter,
predictions
their critique,
Greenberg
Irving Dilliard,
critics,
an
casual and spontaneous
we can't
immediately, if we
to find the origins of this
can propose
solely
alienate some
Editor: Kenneth M. Greene
Consulting
are
though
in
amours."
increasing garrulity.
Lowell's practice of increasingly
others
feel,
If
pleasure.
new source of aesthetic response.
writing
ideological,
invoke is
we wish
poets,
1811
1977
define,
be
can
The only
continued.
ways we can
suitable
Rich's poetry
for feminist debate by
admirers whose standards are
sensibility
someone new gives us pleasure
apprehended sensuality.
used
reactionary, yet
always
criterion we can
is
PHI BETA KAPPA
autumn
number one
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its first
raise
problems
THE
05h?e r^sy F^eport^r
to
to our
brimming
learned
years of reading:
dazzles
and
four)
page
entailed
in watching
contemporary
response
created
new
beginnings,
criticism attempts a
of
worthy
before its
Second
at
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it
sees
own eyes.
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