A brief but stimulating meditation on four significant American poets by an indispensable critic. Vendler's (English/Harvard Univ.) dismissive June 18 New York Times Book Review assessment of Bill Moyers's The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets caused a stir among writers who took issue with her negative appraisal of the populist and mutlicultural literary mission. Here she returns with four cool-headed, serenely selfless essays that originated as the T.S. Eliot Lectures given at the University of Kent. Her subject is the characteristic obsessions guiding the work of Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Rita Dove, and Jorie Graham, each of whom, in Vendler's view, has transformed obsession into art. Vendler guides us as she follows the course of the obsession through the transformation. Berryman's ``given'' obsession, in her judgment, was manic-depression and alcohol addiction, leading the poet to construct in his work a ``phantasmagoria'' of the id. Lowell's was history, reconfigured from the burden and the honor of the writer's distinguished public ancestry. Dove's ``rethinking of the lyric poet's relation to the history of blackness'' sprang from her identity as an African- American, while Graham's ``given'' is her trilingualism, leading to a complex metaphysics embodied in language. The particular virtue of Vendler is to write with the authority of a scholar and the alertness of a contemporary about a form of art too often deluged by arcana, professional jargon, literary back-patting, or neglect. Encountering clarity in analytical writing that fulfills clarity of thought is a rare event; even Vendler's detractors, who assail her conservative aesthetic, should acknowledge her ongoing accomplishment. A literary challenge and a companion for the common reader, whoever that may be, of 20th-century poetry.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-674-35431-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
