Poetry Reviews

POETRY REVIEWS

Ezra Pound (Literary Lives) (1981) (Peter Ackroyd 1949-)

Let's face it, few of us are likely to hack our way through the thickets (some of them rendered in Chinese) of Ezra Pound's Cantos. Even in college, in a course on modern literature, we didn't actually read the Cantos, instead we read Hugh Kenner's book, The Pound Era. Still, one would like to understand what made Pound such an important figure in the history of literature and Peter Ackroyd's slender and copiously illustrated biography accomplishes the task quite painlessly.

Besides helping us to understand what Pound was trying to achieve in his own poetry--which seems to have been an attempt to capture all of reality within the confines of the poetic form--Mr. Ackroyd shows how profoundly Pound influenced other Modernists, in particular T. S. Eliot and James Joyce. I'd not previously been aware of the degree to which Pound helped sculpt The Waste Land, to the point that Mr. Ackroyd gives him credit as its virtual co-author :

    The transformation of The Waste Land effected by Pound is, although not total, nevertheless remarkable. What had been a longer,
    more sustained and more elaborately lyrical work was changed into something less personal, tighter and more abrupt. It was precisely
    these qualities which were to lend the poem its air of modernity--since, in large part, our notion of what is "modern" is derived from
    Pound's work and criticism.

Where Joyce was concerned, Pound appears to have been one of his earliest proselytizers, publishing Portrait of the Artist in serial form in his magazine, The Egoist, and Ulysses in the magazine, The Little Review. He also reviewed Joyce's work in every publication he could, extolling his virtues to anyone who would listen. Yet, Pound also had the brutal honesty to assess Finnegan's Wake with the dismissal that it so richly deserved :

Nothing short of divine vision or a new cure for the clapp can possibly be worth all the circumambient peripherization.

Unfortunately for Pound, the harshness of that critique reveals a willingness to speak his mind and a forcefulness of opinion which were to get him in considerable trouble when they combined with other personality traits to turn him into a Fascist propagandist.

Mr. Ackroyd convincingly locates the appeal of fascism to Pound in the poet's passion for organization and order, his belief in a cultural elite, and his adherence to the odd economic theory of Social Credit, expounded by a Major C. H. Douglas :

    Its doctrine states, quite simply, that once money has lost its natural basis in people's needs and aspirations--when, in other words,
    it has been turned into a commodity merely to be bought and sold--then the nation and its culture sour. Money is a complex
    measure of man's time and the worth of his labour; when it becomes an anonymous entity to be hoarded and manipulated, all other
    human and social values shift downward. But there was also a blindingly simple economic point to be made in this connection:
    the bankers control money at the expense of everyone else in the community.

His belief in a social hierarchy is a classic enough conservative position, likewise his fear of cultural decline. And the rest of Pound's ideas were probably harmless in themselves, even if some were bizarre; but it is this last notion, that the problems one perceives in the world are necessarily a product of some kind of conspiracy, that represents the dangerous spark that all too often ignites hatreds like anti-Semitism. True conservatism requires the recognition that disorder and decline are natural phenomena, resulting from the debased desires of the masses. Those who are unable to accept this reality and instead try to blame shadowy conspirators are dangerously deluded.

Sadly, Pound fell prey to just such delusions and ended up making radio broadcasts for Mussolini during WWII. The result of these pro-fascist, anti-American, anti-Semitic soliloquies was a 1943 indictment for treason and eventual arrest and, following a finding of insanity, confinement to St. Elizabeth's mental hospital in Washington, DC. He was kept there until the charge of treason was dismissed on April 18, 1958. Upon his release, Pound moved back to Italy where he lapsed into a depressive silence and spent his final years in and out of clinics, futilely trying to find some way to recapture his creative powers.

If in the end it is not possible for us to feel too much sympathy for a man who betrayed his wife--with a mistress named Olga Rudge by whom he had a daughter and who eventually became his constant companion--and his country, and who spewed venomous hatred of Jews, perhaps it is still possible to acknowledge his achievements, or at least his aspirations, as an artist. Here's how Mr. Ackroyd summarizes Pound's own literary legacy :

Pound attempted to recreate the whole world in the image of himself and his poetry--despite the divisive tendencies of the age,
and the obsessive weaknesses of his own character.

Maybe in this sense we can see writ small in him the larger tragedy of the 20th Century, of men trying to prove themselves equal to the Creator, but failing horribly, and finding it necessary to lash out against others to explain the failure.

GRADE : B+

Buy Ezra Pound at Amazon

WEBSITES :
    -PETER ACKROYD (1949-) (Guardian Unlimited)
    -BIBLIOGRAPHY : Peter Ackroyd (october 5, 1949 - ) (Bradley Shoop)
    -EXCERPT : from London: the biography by Peter Ackroyd : The sea!
    -ESSAY : Arts are in fine form : 'In the past two decades English culture has undergone a renaissance, in a spirit not unlike that of the late 14th and 16th centuries' (PETER ACKROYD, 1/02/02, Times of London)
    -REVIEW : of Marcel Proust By Edmund White (Peter Ackroyd, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : The Perreaus and Mrs Rudd : Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century London By Donna T Andrews & Randall McGowen (Peter Ackroyd, Times of London)
    -PROFILE : Following the Ghost of Dickens (LAURA LEIVICK, December 22, 1991, NY times)
    -PROFILE : Writing bestsellers while on a bender : On books and booze (John Sutherland, October 9, 2000, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY : PETER ACKROYD, POSTMODERNIST PLAY AND CHATTERTON (Brian Finney)
    -REVIEW : Lincoln Kirstein, The Eyes of Ez (NY Review of Books)
        Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts edited with an introduction by Harriet Zinnes
        Ezra Pound and His World by Peter Ackroyd
    -REVIEW : of T. S. Eliot by Peter Ackroyd (John Gross, NY Times)
    -REVIEW : of T S Eliot by Peter Ackroyd (Frank Kermode, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW : of BLAKE By Peter Ackroyd (Penelope Fitzgerald, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : of Chatterton, by Peter Ackroyd (Emma Tennant, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW : of Milton in America (Tony Tanner, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : of Milton in America (Canadian Federation of University Women)
    -REVIEW : of The Life of Thomas More By Peter Ackroyd (Andrew Sullivan, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : of Life of Thomas More (Francis Gilbert, Guardian)
    -REVIEW : of THE PLATO PAPERS A Prophecy. By Peter Ackroyd (John Sutherland, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : 'Therefore I Print' (John Updike, NY Review of Books)
    William Blake an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 29-June 24, 2001
    William Blake Catalog of the exhibition by Robin Hamlyn and Michael Phillips, with introductory essay by Peter Ackroyd
    -REVIEW : of London : An Autobiography by Peter Ackroyd (Patrick McGrath, NY Times Book Review)
     -REVIEW : of London : An Autobiography by Peter Ackroyd (Iain Sinclair, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW : of London (Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW : of London (Stephen Moss, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW : of London (Peter Preston, The Observer)
    -REVIEW : of London: The Biography By Peter Ackroyd (RICHARD C. WALLS, Boston Phoenix)
    -REVIEW : of 'London: The Biography' by Peter Ackroyd (Michael Dirda, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW : of The Collection By Peter Ackroyd (Jeanette Winterson, Times of London)
    -REVIEW : of THE COLLECTION Journalism, Essays, Short Stories, Lectures By Peter Ackroyd (John Button, Sydney Morning Herald)

Recommended books by Ezra Pound :
-ABC of Reading (1960) (Ezra Pound 1885-1972)

EZRA POUND (1885-1972) :
    -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : "Ezra Pound"
    -Ezra Loomis Pound (1885-1972) (kirjasto)
    -ETEXTS : Poems by Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)
    -ANNOTATED ETEXT : KYBERNEKYIA : A Hypervortext of Ezra Pound's Canto LXXXI (concept & editing NED BATES | project director GAIL MCDONALD, UNC Charlotte)
    -ETEXT : Ezra Pound. Sestina: Altaforte
    -ETEXT : The River-Merchant's Wife (Pound translated Japanese versions of the poems of the Chinese poet Li Po)
    -ETEXTS : Ezra Pound (santafe.edu)
    -ETEXTS : SELECTED POETRY OF EZRA LOOMIS POUND (1885-1972) (Representative Poetry On-line, Department of English at the University of Toronto)
    -AUDIO EXCERPT : Ezra Pound "The Cantos" (Salon)
    -National Poetry Foundation : PAIDEUMA : A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO EZRA POUND SCHOLARSHIP
    -National Poetry Foundation : EZRA POUND SCHOLARSHIP SERIES
    -Ezra Pound Center for Literature (University of New Orleans)
    -Ezra Pound in the University of Idaho Library
    -National Poetry Foundation : Ezra Pound Discussion Group
    -Ezra Pound (American Academy of Poets)
    -Ezra Pound (AmericanPoems.com)
    -Ezra Pound (1885-1972) (Modern American Poetry)
    -Ezra Pound (1885-1972) (Professor Eiichi Hishikawa, Faculty of Letters, Kobe University)
    -BBC Education : Biography : Ezra Pound
    -EPC Ezra Pound Authors Homepage (Loren Goodman)
    -PETALS ON A WET BLACK BOUGH: American Modernist Writers and the Orient (A Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Exhibition, Yale University)
    -Chapter 7: Early Twentieth Century - Ezra Pound (1885-1972) (PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide)
    -Ezra Pound (Wickling)
    -Ezra Pound and the Occult (Case Western Reserve)
    -World War I ....according to Ezra Pound
    -PROFILE : The strange and inscrutable case of Ezra Pound : The expatriate American poet returned home in ignominy, and the postwar world watched as a literary giant was charged with treason (Smithsonian)
    -ETEXT : Ezra Pound in History (Hideo Nogami, From Modern to Postmodern English)
    -ESSAY : A major minor: Ezra Pound's poetry (Donald Lyons, New Criterion)
    -ESSAY : POUND, BLAST, AND SYNDICALISM (David Kadlec, ELH)
    -ESSAY : ON THE EZRA POUND/ MARSHALL MCLUHAN CORRESPONDENCE (EDWIN J. BARTON, McLuhan Studies : Premiere Issue)
    -ESSAY : WHAT DID EZRA POUND REALLY SAY? (Michael Collins Piper, Barnes Review)
    -REVIEW : of Personae: The Collected Poems of Ezra Pound (Herbert S. Gorman, January 23, 1927, NY Times)

GENERAL :
-REVIEW : of THE FIRST MODERNS : Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought. By William R. Everdell (Hugh Kenner , NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW : of American Poetry The Twentieth Century. Edited by Robert Hass, John Hollander, Carolyn Kizer, Nathaniel Mackey and Marjorie Perlof (William H. Pritchard, NY Times Book Review)

2/17/02

The Inferno (1314)(translation 1994)(Dante Alighieri 1265-1321) (translated by Robert Pinsky 1940-)

    Midway on our life's journey, I found myself
        In dark woods, the right road lost.
           -Canto I, 1-2

    Therefore I judge it best that you should choose
        To follow me, and I will be your guide
        Away from here and through an eternal place

    To hear the cries of despair, and to behold
        Ancient tormented spirits as they lament
        In chorus the second death they must abide.
           -Canto I, 88-93 (Virgil to Dante)

    THROUGH ME YOU ENTER INTO THE CITY OF WOES,
        THROUGH ME YOU ENTER INTO ETERNAL PAIN,
        THROUGH ME YOU ENTER THE POPULATION OF LOSS

    JUSTICE MOVED MY HIGH MAKER, IN POWER DIVINE,
        WISDOM SUPREME, LOVE PRIMAL. NO THINGS WERE
        BEFORE ME NOT ETERNAL; ETERNAL I REMAIN

ABANDON HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE.
-Canto III, 1-7 (written above the Gates of Hell)

...we came forth, and once more saw the stars.
-Canto XXXIV, 140 (final line)

There is a certain, rather delicate, aspect of the modern liberal sensibility that rebels against Dante's Inferno. In his account of returning to Columbia to restudy Western Civilization, David Denby is surprised not to like Dante much :

    I could not rid myself of the notion that Dante had entered into complicity with torture. In some
    way, he believed in torture; he justified it. . . . My reading of Dante was a failure, and of the most
    direct sort: I didn't enjoy it

And in his introduction to this translation by Robert Pinsky, John Freccero says that :

    In spite of Dante's reputation as the greatest of Christian poets, there is no sign of Christian
    forgiveness in the Inferno. The dominant theme is not mercy but justice, dispensed with the
    severity of the ancient law of retribution.

...

    Justice in Hell is meant to be objective, measured out by a bureaucratic monster in proportion to the
    specific gravity of the sin. Such a mechanical administration of punishment leaves no room for
    judicial error or caprice.

Few of Dante's readers have derived much satisfaction from the triumph of this somewhat
anonymous justice.

These sentiments, with which I could not disagree more strongly, reflect the curious point we've reached in Western history. On the one hand, the intelligentsia find torture, capital punishment, virtually any civil rights imposition, to be unacceptable when it comes to actual evil doers, but blithely advocates abortion, euthanasia, and the like, for genuine innocents. Human beings in this world view are judged by their physical condition, rather than by their moral standing. And yet, it is Dante who is adjudged to be brutal.

Personally, I find something comforting in the idea that, in a world where so much evil exists, those who are evil might face eternal perdition. Particularly satisfying is the presence of the great romantic lovers in Hell--Tristan and Iseult, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, etc.. I've always found disturbing the literature which celebrates love which must perforce be so shallow as these great affairs--it's nice to think of them getting their comeuppance.

As a rule though, it seems likely that readers' reactions to the rather severe treatment of the souls in Hell will track their own political leanings. If you are someone who wishes that justice were objective, you're unlikely to be offended. If you tend to wring your hands in agony at the prospect of someone being held accountable for their actions, you won't feel comfortable with the fate Dante forecasts. In either case, the poem itself is truly great and in Robert Pinsky's translation, it's reasonably easy to follow. You will want to refer to the notes frequently and a study guide of some kind can't hurt. I also recommend the recorded version : hearing it read aloud adds to the experience greatly.

GRADE : A+

Buy The Inferno at Amazon.com
Audio Version

WEBSITES:
    -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA: Your search: "dante alighieri"
    -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : The Divine Comedy
    -BIO: Dante Alighieri (Catholic Encyclopaedia)
    -BIO: Dante Alighieri: Poet, Spiritual Writer ( James E. Kiefer)
    -GATEWAY : ORB ONLINE REFERENCE BOOK FOR MEDIEVAL STUDIES DANTE ALIGHIERI: A Guide to Online Resources
    -The World of Dante (virginia.edu)
    -Divine Comedy.org
    -JOURNAL: Lectura Dantis Online
    -The Clickable Inferno
    -Dante's Inferno (David Felfoldi)
    -Dante's Inferno: Site Resource Guide
    -LINKS: City Honors Dante's Inferno Internet Sites
    -For the Hell of It : produced by students studying ENG 251, Survey of World Literature I-Fall 1999 at Thomas Nelson Community College under the direction of Dr. Thomas Long
    -LECTURE: Inroduction to The Inferno (W. Stephany, UVM)
    -LECTURE: LBST Lecture on Dante (Ian Johnston, 1997, Malaspina)
    -LECTURE: Module 15: Dante's Inferno (1) (shepherd.edu)
    -ESSAY: The Ambiguity of Evil: An Examination of Dante's Inferno (Matthew C. Steenberg, St. Olafs)
    -ESSAY: The Physical Environment and Structure of Dante's Inferno as Influenced by Vergil's Aeneid (Nicolas Rapold, The Collegiate School, 1997)
    -ESSAY: The Teaching of Ethics through Literature and Dante's Inferno (ANNE BARBEAU GARDINER, Association of Departments of English Bulletin)
    -ESSAY : What about Purgatory? : The doctrinal grounding of Dante's mysterious mountain. (Dennis Martin, Christian History, Spring 2001)
    -Dante's Inferno - The MUD Version (MUD Commissioned by C. Roberts Stevens at the University of Texas at Austin's Computer Writing and Research Lab)
    -ARTWORK: Robert Rauschenberg's XXXIV Drawings for Dante's Inferno
    -Renaissance Dante in Print (1472-1629)(Notre Dame)
    -ETEXTS: The Divine Comedy Research Edition (The Electronic Literature Foundation)
    -ETEXT: The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) (EveryPoet.com)
    -ETEXT: Inferno from The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (c.1320) Translated by Henry F. Cary
    -ETEXT: The Inferno From the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri Translated by S. Fowler Wright
    -ONLINE STUDY GUIDE: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri (Spark Note by Patrick Gardner)
    -Dante's "Clickable" Inferno : selections from Dante Alighieri's Inferno in an "interactive" format. The text used is up to you, the user; choose from Allen Mandelbaum's, Robert Pinsky's, or John Ciardi's translation and notes to Dante's original text
    -ARCHIVES: "alighieri" (NY Review of Books)
    -ARCHIVES: "dante" (NY Review of Books)
    -REVIEW ESSAY : Dante is more than a revered but bygone giant. There has never been so much evidence of his continuing vitality (The Economist)
    -REVIEW: of THE DIVINE COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI A Verse Translation by Allen Mandelbaum (John Ahern, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Purgatorio By DANTE ALIGHIERI. Translated by W. S. MERWIN (DANIEL MENDELSOHN, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : of Dante: A Life in Works by Robert Hollander (Algis Valiunas, Weekly Standard)
    -REVIEW : of Dante by R W B Lewis (Jonathan Bate, booksonline uk)
    -REVIEW : of DANTE ALIGHIERI: Divine Comedy, Divine Spirituality, by Robert Royal. (J. Bottum, Wilson Quarterly)
    -ESSAY : People of the Book : Robert Royal laments that Americans can read newspapers and People magazine easily, but stumble over Dante's Divine Comedy. (The Crisis, March 2001)

GENERAL
    -Academy of American Poets
    -Internet Medieval Source Book (Fordham)
    -Christian Classics Ethereal Library : Classic Christian books in electronic format (Wheaton)
    -Biographical sketches of memorable Christians of the past (Online Anglican Resources)
    -Modern American Poetry : A Multimedia Companion to Anthology of Modern American Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2000) Edited by Cary Nelson

5/09/01

Poem of the Cid (1140)(Anonymous)(translated by W.S. Merwin 1927-)

It's odd, that when we consider Great Western Literature we do not automatically consider Spain, despite the fact that it produced the first--and still the greatest--novel in Don Quijote (see Orrin's review) and one of the world's best epic poems, El Cid. All of us recognize the name El Cid, and I remember the pretty feeble movie version with Charlton Heston (supposedly the restored version is much better than the hacked up one they used to show), but has anyone ever read it? This great translation by the poet W.S. Merwin isn't even in print anymore. It should be; it's a great story.

The Cid was a historical figure, Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar (1043-99), the greatest Christian knight of 12th Century Spain. This was a turbulent time in Spain. The Moors had crossed over from Africa in 711 and won extensive holdings in the South (Andalusia). By the Cid's day, the badly divided northern Kingdom was uniting for a Reconquista, an attempt to drive out the Moors. The Catholic Encyclopaedia describes the actual events of the Cid's life:

    Ferdinand I, at his death (1065), had divided his dominions between his three sons, Sancho,
    Alfonso, and Garcia, and his two daughters, Elvira and Urraca, exacting from them a promise that
    they would respect his wishes and abide by the division. But Sancho, to whose lot had fallen the
    Kingdom of Castile, being the eldest, thought that he should have inherited the entire dominions of
    his father, and he resolved to repudiate his promise, claiming that it had been forced from him.
    Stronger, braver, and craftier than his brothers, he cherished the idea of despoiling them and his
    sisters of their possessions, and becoming the sole successor of his father.

    At this time, Rodrigo Diaz was quite young, and Sancho, out of gratitude for the services of
    Rodrigo's father to the State, had retained his son at the court and looked after his education,
    especially his military training. Rodrigo later rendered such distinguished services in the war in
    which Sancho became involved with Aragon that he was made alferez (standard-bearer or
    commander-in-chief) of the king's troops. After ending this war with Aragon, Sancho turned his
    attention to his plan of despoiling his brothers and sisters (c. 1070). He succeeded in adding to his
    dominion Leon and Galicia, the portions of his brothers, but not until in each instance Rodrigo had
    come to his rescue and turned apparent defeat into victory. The city of Toro, the domain of his
    sister Elvira, was taken without trouble. He then laid siege to the city of Zamora, the portion of his
    sister Urraca, and there met his fate, being treacherously slain before the gates of the city by one of
    Urraca's soldiers (1072). Learning this, Alfonso who had been exiled to the Moorish city of Toledo,
    set out in haste to claim the dominions of his brother, and succeeded him on the throne as Alfonso
    VI, though not without opposition, from his brother Garcia, in Galicia, and especially in Castile, the
    inhabitants of which objected to a Leonese king. The story is told, though not on the best historical
    authority, that the Castilians refused Alfonso their allegiance until he had sworn that he had no hand
    in his brother's death, and that, as none of the nobles was willing to administer the oath for fear of
    offending him, Rodrigo did so at Santa Gadea before the assembled nobility. If this be true, it
    would account in a great measure for the ill-will Alfonso bore Rodrigo, and for his subsequent
    treatment of him. He did not at first show his hatred, but tried to conciliate Rodrigo and the
    Castilians by bestowing upon him his niece Jimena in marriage (1074). It was not long, however,
    before he had an opportunity to satisfy his animosity. Rodrigo having been sent by Alfonso to
    collect tribute from the king of Seville, Alfonso's vassal, he was accused on his return, by his
    enemies of having retained a part of it. Whereupon, Alfonso, giving free rein to his hatred, banished
    him from his dominions (1076). Rodrigo then began his career as a soldier of fortune, which has
    furnished themes to Spanish poets of early modern times, and which, idealized by tradition and
    legend, has made of him the champion of Christian Spain against her Moorish invaders. During this
    period of his career, he offered his services and those of his followers first to one petty ruler and
    then another, and often fought on his own account, warring indifferently against Christians and
    Moors, always with distinguished success, and incidentally rising to great power and influence. But
    in time of necessity his assistance was sought by Alfonso, and in the midst of career of conquest he
    hastened to the latter's support when he was hard pressed by Yusuf, the founder of Morocco.

    Through some mistake or misunderstanding, however, he failed to join the king, who listening to
    the complaints and accusations of the Cid's enemies, took from him all of his possessions,
    imprisoned his wife and children, and again banished him for his dominions. Disgraced and
    plundered, the Cid resumed his military operations. Upon his return from one of his campaigns,
    hearing that the moors had driven the Christians from Valencia and taken possession of the city, he
    determined to recapture it from them and become lord of that capital. This he did (1094) after a
    terrible siege. He spent the remainder of his days there. His two daughters were married to the
    Infante of Navarre and the Count of Barcelona respectively. His remains were transferred to the
    monastery of San Pedro de Cardena near Burgos, where they now rest.

The poem actually only covers the years from 1081, when the Cid is exiled from the Court, until shortly before his death. It is concerned less with warfare, though there are stirring battle scenes, than with his relationship with Alfonzo. Essentially it details how the Cid, in seeking redress of grievances including insult to his daughters, forces Alfonso to act like a King. It culminates in a grand trial by combat, where The Cid's men at arms vanquish his treacherous sons-in-law.

The story functions on a number of levels: stirring adventure, Christian triumphalism and political instruction. It is particularly vital to the Western tradition in so far as The Cid is born of middling rank, but rises to preeminence on the strength of his own talents and for the manner in which The Cid requires Alfonso to behave like a worthy leader. Both of these have obvious implications for the rise of liberal democracy, and to my mind, place The Cid in company with Robin Hood as early democratic heroes. The translation by Merwin, if you can find it, is readily accessible and vastly enjoyable. (if not, try this one The Poem of the Cid : A Bilingual Edition With Parallel Text (Penguin Classics) This is good stuff and we should know it better.

GRADE: A

WEBSITES:
    -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA: Your search: "w. s. merwin"
    -Featured Author: W. S. Merwin (NY Times Book Review Archives)
    -POEMS, ESSAYS & REVIEWS: W.S. Merwin: (NY Review of Books)
    -ESSAY: What is American About American Poetry? (W.S. Merwin, Poetry Society of America)
    -ESSAY: First Loves (WS Merwin, American Poetry Society)
    -REVIEW: A Scattering of Salt by James Merrill (W.S. Merwin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of RIMBAUD By Pierre Petitfils. Translated by Alan Sheridan (W.S. Merwin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of BURNING PATIENCE By Antonio Skarmeta. Translated by Katherine Silver (W.S. Merwin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of THE INVENTION OF SOLITUDE By Paul Auster   (W.S. Merwin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of CELESTINE Voices From a French Village. By Gillian Tindall   (W.S. Merwin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of CHAMFORT A Biography. By Claude Arnaud. Translated by Deke Dusinberre   (W.S. Merwin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of HYMNS AND FRAGMENTS By Friedrich Holderlin. Translated and Introduced by Richard Sieburth   (W.S. Merwin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: W.S. Merwin: A Poet in Exile, NY Review of Books
        Collected Poems by Edwin Muir
    -REVIEW: W.S. Merwin: A Sight of the Bright Life, NY Review of Books
        The Book of Counsel: The Popol Vuh of the Quiche Maya of Guatemala by Munro S. Edmonson
    -REVIEW: W.S. Merwin: 'Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang', NY Review of Books
        Birds in Literature by Leonard Lutwack
    -REVIEW: W.S. Merwin: Footprints of a Shadow, NY Review of Books
        Fernando Pessoa: A Centenary Pessoa edited by Eugénio Lisboa and with L.C. Taylor
        Poems of Fernando Pessoa translated and edited by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown
        Fernando Pessoa & Co.:Selected Poems edited and translated by Richard Zenith
        Always Astonished: Selected Prose by Fernando Pessoa translated by Edwin Honig
        The Keeper of Sheep by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Edwin Honig, and Susan M. Brown
        An Introduction to Fernando Pessoa by Darlene J. Sadlier
        The Presence of Pessoa by George Monteiro
    -AUDIO: Poetry Readings by Merwin
                 W. S. Merwin, "Any Time"
                 W. S. Merwin, "Before the Flood"
                 W. S. Merwin, "Term"
    -POEMS: (from The Atlantic)
    -POEM: "FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH" by W.S. Merwin
    -POEM: Eight: The Stranger: After a Guarani legend recorded by Ernesto Morales
    -POEM: Far Company (Poetry Magazine)
    -POEM: Separation (Lumea)
    -POEM: "Yesterday" (Fooling with Words, Bill Moyer, PBS)
    -POEM: Beggars and Kings
    -POEM: Twilight (Neue Sirene)
    -POEMS: links to poetry by W.S. Merwin
    -ESSAY: W.S. Merwin: PLANH FOR THE DEATH OF TED HUGHES, NY Review of Books
    -ESSAY: W.S. Merwin: Two Poems , NY Review of Books
    -TRANSLATION: W.S. Merwin translates Canto XXXI of Dante's Purgatorio (Cortland Review)
    -TRANSLATIONS: Poetry from EAST WINDOW: The Asian Translations by W.S. Merwin (Tricycle)
    -W. S. Merwin (1927- )(Modern American Poetry)
    -Academy of American Poets: W. S. Merwin
    -INTERVIEW: A Poet of Their Own (DINITIA SMITH, NY Times)
    -INTERVIEW: "A Whole New Thing"   W.S. Merwin on poetry, The Folding Cliffs and Hawai`i (John Wythe White, Honolulu Weekly)
    -PROFILE: Swimming up into Poetry: The Atlantic's poetry editor reflects on the career of W. S. Merwin, whose long association with the magazine spans great distances of geography and art (Peter Davison, The Atlantic)
    -AWARDS: IN A WORLD OF RHYME, REASON, POETRY PAYS: W.S. MERWIN TAKES $75,000 LILLY PRIZE (Jon Anderson, Chicago Tribune)
    -ESSAY: Forging a Unique Spanish Christian Identity: Santiago and El Cid in the Reconquista (Laura Elizabeth Gibbs)
    -ESSAY: AFTER FREE VERSE: THE NEW NON-LINEAR POETRIES (MARJORIE PERLOFF)
    -ESSAY: Sex, Semantics, and Chauvinism (Ming Zhen Shakya)
    -POEM: ON READING W. S. MERWIN in the NEW YORKER (James DeFord, James DeFord's Poetry Corner)
    -REVIEW : of Purgatorio by Dante; Translated by W.S. Merwin (David R. Slavitt, Philadelphia Inquirer)
    -REVIEW: G.S. Fraser: Three Poets, NY Review of Books
        The Moving Target by W.S. Merwin
        Weather and Seasons by Michael Hamburger
        A Peopled Landscape by Charles Tomlinson
    -REVIEW: Denis Donoghue: Objects Solitary and Terrible, NY Review of Books
        Live or Die by Anne Sexton
        The Lice by W.S. Merwin
        Reasons for Moving by Mark Strand
        Love Letters from Asia by Sandra Hochman
    -REVIEW: Denis Donoghue: Waiting for the End, NY Review of Books
        The Gulf by Derek Walcott
        The Carrier of Ladders by W.S. Merwin
        Darker by Mark Strand
        The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace by James Merrill
        The Whispering Roots and Other Poems by C. Day-Lewis
        Collecting Evidence by Hugh Seidman
        Baby Breakdown by Anne Waldman
    -REVIEW: Stephen Spender: Can Poetry Be Reviewed?, NY Review of Books
        Moly and My Sad Captains by Thom Gunn
        Writings to An Unfinished Accompaniment by W.S. Merwin
        Braving the Elements by James Merrill
        Wintering Out by Seamus Heaney
        The Crystal Lithium by James Schuyler
        They Feed They Lion by Philip Levine
        A Change of Hearts by Kenneth Koch
    -REVIEW: Joseph Brodsky; Barry Rubin (translated by): Beyond Consolation, NY Review of Books
        Hope Abandoned by Nadezhda Mandelstam and translated by Max Hayward
        Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems translated by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin
        Complete Poetry of Osip Emilevich Mandelstam translated by Burton Raffel
        Osip Mandel'shtam, Selected Poems translated by David McDuff
    -REVIEW: Bernard Knox: A Four Handkerchief Tragedy, NY Review of Books
        Euripides: Iphigeneia at Aulis translated by W.S. Merwin and George E. Dimock, Jr.
        Iphigenia a film directed by Michael Cacoyannis
    -REVIEW: Michael Wood: The Insulted and the Injured, NY Review of Books
        César Vallejo: The Dialectics of Poetry and Silence by Jean Franco
        Poesía completa by César Vallejo
        Vertical Poetry by Roberto Juarroz and translated by W. S. Merwin
        "Harsh World" and Other Poems by Angel González and translated by Donald D. Walsh
        Muestra by Angel González
    -REVIEW: Roger Shattuck: In the Magic Circle, NY Review of Books
        The Lost Upland: Stories of Southwest France by W.S. Merwin
    -REVIEW: John Bayley: Living Ghosts, NY Review of Books
        Lament for the Makers by W.S. Merwin
        The Vixen by W.S. Merwin
        Flight Among the Tombs by Anthony Hecht
        The Bounty by Derek Walcott -REVIEW: of The River Sound by W.S. Merwin (Jerry Bass, Richmond Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Vixen by W. S. Merwin (Richard Howard, Boston Review)
    -REVIEW: of Poems in W.S. Merwin's `The Vixen' reveal the uncanny, kinetic power of the written word (Arlice Davenport, Knight-Ridder Newspapers)
    -REVIEW: of Folding Cliffs: Hawaiian Epic Poet W. S. Merwin crystallizes the history and humanity of the islands in his new masterwork. (Gretel Ehrich, Island Magazine)
    -REVIEW: of Folding Cliffs: Pulitzer poet pays homage to isles with `Folding Cliffs' (Suzanne Tswei, Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
    -REVIEW: John Bayley: Green and Secretive Islands, NY Review of Books
        The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative by W.S. Merwin
        The River Sound by W.S. Merwin

EL CID:
    -ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA: Cid, the
      b. c. 1043,, Vivar, near Burgos, Castile [Spain]
      d. July 10, 1099, Valencia
    -Bio: El Cid (Rodrigo, or Ruy, Diaz, Count of Bivar) (Catholic Encyclopaedia)
    -BATTLES OF RODRIGO DIAZ DE VIVAR "EL CID"
    -Legends - Paladins and Princes - The Cid
    -SUMMARY & COMMENT: The Song of El Cid
    -Discussion Questions: POEM OF THE CID (SPAN-HUM 2744 / Dr. Folkart )
    -ESSAY: WEAPONS FROM THE SONG OF ROLAND AND THE CID By Magistra Rosemounde of Mercia
    -ESSAY: Multiculturalism Gone Wrong: Spain in the Rennaissance ( adapted from a guest lecture given for the European Civilization course)   (Alix Ingber, Professor of Spanish)
    -ESSAY: THE LIBRARY OF IBERIAN RESOURCES ONLINE:   ISLAMIC AND CHRISTIAN SPAIN IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES by Thomas F. Glick
    -EXCERPT: Chapter One of The SPANISH INQUISITION: A HISTORICAL REVISION By Henry Kamen (Denver Post Books Online)
    -ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA: Spain, history of: The rise of Castile and Aragon
    -ETEXT: THE CHRONICLE OF THE CID
    -ETEXT: The Lay of the Cid (Translation: R.Selden Rose & L. Bacon)
    -ETEXT: Robert Southey: The Chronicle of the Cid, 1637
    -Harold Bloom's Western Canon
    -Philip Ward's "500 Greatest Books": From Philip Ward's 1984 book A Lifetime's Reading: 500 Great Books to Be Enjoyed over 50 Years.
    -ARTICLE: Medieval Riches of El Cid's City (GERRY DAWES, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of THE QUEST FOR EL CID By Richard Fletcher (Ian Gibson, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: MEDIEVAL COWBOYS   Deirdre Headon (D.J.R. Bruckner, NY Times Book Review)

FILM:
-BUY IT: El Cid (Amazon.com)
-INFO: El Cid (Internet Movie DataBase)

GENERAL:
    -Outline of the Literature of the Middle Ages By Roger Blackwell Bailey, Ph. D. (San Antonio College Lit Web)
    -The Internet Medieval Sourcebook now part of ORB, the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies
    -ETEXT: Song and Legend From the Middle Ages by William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

5/06/00

Songs from Bialik : Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik (2000) (Hayim Nahman Bialik 1873-1934) (translated and with an Introduction by Atar Hadari)

Loathe as I am to admit it now that I do know, I have to say that I'd never heard of Hayim Nahman Bialik until Mr. Hadari contacted us. Nor, I suspect, have many of you. This is an injustice, one that Mr. Hadari's translations can hopefully help to right.

Hayim (or Chaim) Nahman Bialik is considered the national poet of Israel, even though he died before the state was founded. He is also considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets ever. In fact, one of his achievements was to restore Hebrew as the language of Jewish poetry, rather than the Yiddish that had become more common. Bialik was born in Radi, Russia, and was raised there and in Zhitomir, by a scholarly father and, upon his father's death, by a stern and scholarly grandfather. Upon reaching adulthood he lived off and on in Odessa which, unlike other Russian cities which forbade them, had a sizable population of Jews (including fellow writers like Isaac Babel, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and Ahad Ha'am, a Zionist who was one of Bialik's mentors). Bialik worked in business, as a teacher, as an editor, and finally as a publisher. He traveled in Europe and to what was then Palestine. After the Communist Revolution in Russia, when he came under suspicion for his writings, Bialik moved first to Germany and then to Tel Aviv where he was buried after dying in Vienna following an operation in 1934. Over the course of his career he translated Jewish folk tales, wrote Zionist essays and wrote his own poems (though not many after 1916). It was these last that made his name. And it was one specific poem that made him a central figure in the history of Zionism.

Living in Czarist Russia, he witnessed at first hand the brutal treatment of the Jewish people. In particular, he visited the city of Kishinev (modern day Chisinau, Moldova) after the 1903 pogrom in which 50 Jews were murdered. Fueled by anger both at what had been done and at the inadequacy of Jewish response, he wrote his greatest poem, the one with which Mr. Hadari begins the collection : City of the Killings (1903). I wish I could find the whole thing on-line because it's unbelievably powerful, but here's how it begins :

and by its final stanzas Bialik demands :

    To the graveyard, beggars! Dig for the bones of your fathers
    and of your sainted brothers and fill with them your bundles
    and hoist them on your shoulders and take to the road, fated
    to merchandize them at all the trade fairs;
    and you will seek a stand at the crossroads where all can see,
    and lay them out in sunshine on the backs of your filthy rags
    and with a parched voice sing a beggar's song over their bodies
    and call for the mercy of nations and pray for the kindness of goyim,
    and where you've stretched your hand you'll stretch it further,
    and where you've begged you will not stop the begging.

    And now what have you left here, son of man, rise and flee to the desert
    and take with you there the cup of sorrows, and tear your soul in ten pieces
    and your heart give for food to a helpless fury
    and your great tear spill there on the heads of the boulders
    and your great bitter scream send forth--
                                                                    to be lost in the storm.

If it's perhaps the case that this one poem stands head and shoulders above the rest, it is also true that at his best Bialik writes in just such a barely controlled rage--earthy, profane, direct, impassioned, accusatory, even apocalyptic. Even at a hundred years remove, it's easy to see why this poem should have had such an effect on world Jewry. It does not merely recount a tragedy; it challenges Jews to respond to the crime that was perpetrated against them, and at the time must have struck like a lightning bolt.

Another that's especially good is : After My Death (1904) :

    After my death mourn me this way:
    "There was a man--and see: he is no more;
    before his time this man died
    and his life's song in mid-bar stopped;
    and oh, it is sad! One more song he had
    and now the song is gone for good,
    gone for good!

    And it is very sad!--a harp too he had
    a living being and murmurous
    and the poet in his words in it
    all of his heart's secret revealed,
    and all the strings his hand gave breath
    but one secret his heart kept hid,
    round and round his fingers played,
    and one string stayed mute,
    mute to this day!

    And it is sad, very sad!
    All of her days this string moved,
    mute she moved, mute she shook,
    for her song, her beloved redeemer
    she yearned, thirsted, grieved and longed
    as a heart pines for its intended:
    and though he hesitated each day she waited
    and in a secret moan begged for him to come,
    and he hesitated and never came,
    never came!

    And great, great is the pain!
    There was a man--and see: he is no more,
    and his life's song in mid-bar stopped,
    one more song he had to go,
    and now the song is gone for good,
    gone for good!

Personally, I found the quality of the pieces to be uneven, but I like those two, and several others, very much. From his own comments in the Translator's Note and from Dan Miron's Introduction, it sounds like Mr. Hadari has focussed more on capturing the spirit and the rhythms of the poems, than trying to artificially preserve exact rhymes and wordings :

    If a poem is mostly words--and fancy words at that--there's precious little there. What I look for is attack, as Derek Walcott would put it--
    it's not enough to know what the word means, though that helps; one needs to also get a sense of the spin on the word--so that if I take liberties
    with the translation, to take the necessary liberty of translation that results in the flight of the new poem, I must have a sense of the bias
    of the material; as may be the case in the treatment by the novelist of historical material, or indeed the treatment by a historian of that same
    material--he uses historical material but it's the bias of his treatment that's interesting, just like the historian's choice of facts determining the
    portrait; so with the poem, if the feeling charging the words is absent, if the feeling in fact doesn't overwhelm the language, like a current
    making the touch of the actual line dangerous, there's no poem to prepare--no song that can be rephrased in English; the translator is, finally
    a harmonizer with the lead vocal; in the prime moments he is reproducing the singer, in the same key, with variations, in another language.
    That is the problem, to find the same rhythms, near the same sense, and with the right emotional current. If there's no current, how can you
    possibly begin to raise your voice? Let alone if the words resist comprehension, and the rhythm stutters.

Not knowing the originals, nor any Hebrew, I've no idea how successful he's been in this task, but I do know that Mr. Hadari's translations tap into a rich emotional current and get you to raise your voice. Whether or not it's precisely Bialik's spirit, they're certainly spirited. Mr. Hadari's done a great service by making the poetry of Bialik accessible to the wider audience the great poet deserves.

GRADE : A

Buy Songs from Bialik at Amazon.com

WEBSITES :
    -Atar Hadari (Ashden Directory of Environment and Drama)
    -POEM : Satan in the Desert (Atar Hadari, January 1999, First Things)
    -POEM : Hopper's Vaudevillians (Atar Hadari, April 1999, First Things)
    -POEM : Remains (Atar Hadari, August 1998, First Things)
    -SHORT STORY : Late (Atar Hadari, Margin)
    -ESSAY : Death of a Motorist (Atar Hadari, Winter 2000, Weber Studies)
    -PLAY EXCERPT : Night Music (Atar Hadari)

BIALIK :
    -Hayyim Nahman Bialik (1873-1934) - name also transliterated Chayim Nachman Bialik (kirjasto)
    -PORTRAIT : on Israeli Ten pound note
    -POEM : A Twig Alighted
    -POEM : Upon the Slaughter
    -POEM : Should You Wish to Know the Source
    -POEM : Aharei Moti
    -POEM : Neither Daylight nor the Darkness (The Old Acacia Tree) (Jewish Heritage Online Magazine)
    -POEM : One, Two (Jewish Heritage Online Magazine)
    -EXCERPTS : Three pieces on childhood excerpted from the works of Chaim Nachman Bialik
    -Hayim Nahman Bialik (Jewish Virtual Library)
    -Biography: Hayim Nahman Bialik (JTS Torah)
    -Bialik, Haim Nahman (1873 -1934) (The Zionist Exposition)
    -ESSAY : The True Face of the "National Poet," Chaim Nachman Bialik (S. Yisraeli, Information & Insight)
    -ESSAY : Chaim Nachman Bialik (Yeshina University Commentator)
    -Three famous Jews from Odessa: Ch. N. Bialik, V. Jabotinsky, I. Babel(Museum of the Jewish People)
    -ESSAY : EGGED (Words Tell Their Tales)
    -ESSAY : Blighted Passover Days and Blood Libels (David Rosenthal, January 2000, Jewish Frontier)
    -ESSAY : Trauma and Abstract Monotheism: Jewish Exile and Recovery in the Sixth Century B.C.E. (David Aberbach, Spring 2001, Judaism)
    -REVIEW : of The Book of Legends: Sefer Ha-Aggadah. Legends from the Talmud and Midrash By Hayim Nahman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky (James A. Sanders, Theology Today)
    -REVIEW : of The Book of Legends (First Things)
    -REVIEW : of The Book of Legends (Rabbi Daniel Judson, Temple Beth David)
    -REVIEW : of THE MODERN JEWISH CANON : A Journey Through Language and Culture. By Ruth R. Wisse (Esther Schor, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : of A PEOPLE APART : The Jews in Europe, 1789-1939. By David Vital (James E. Young, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : of The Modern Jewish Canon (Hillel Halkin, Commentary)
    -REVIEW : of The Israeli-American Connection: Its Roots in the Yishuv, 1914-1945. By Michael Brown (Journal of American History)

JABOTINSKY :
-ESSAY : The Legend of Ze'ev Jabotinsky 1880-1940 (Jewish Post of NY)
-SPEECH : Did Ze'ev Jabotinsky Forecast the Coming of the Holocaust? : The following is a translation from Yiddish of Jabotinsky's touching and sad speech in Tisha B'ev, Oct. 24, 1938, Warsaw, Poland.

8/21/02

Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison (1953) (Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-45)(edited by Eberhard Bethge)(translated by Reginald H. Fuller)

Included in the collection of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's prison writings are two poems that it appears he must have written at Tegel Prison in Berlin in mid-July 1944, around the mid-point of his doomed imprisonment (April 1943 to April 1945). The first is justifiably famous, expressing as it does Bonhoeffer's own strange and strained relationship to his pending martyrdom :

WHO AM I?

    Who am I? They often tell me
    I would step from my cellís confinement
    calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
    like a squire from his country-house.
    Who am I? They also tell me
    I would talk to my warders
    freely and friendly and clearly,
    as though it were mine to command.
    Who am I? They also tell me
    I would bear the days of misfortune
    equably, smilingly, proudly,
    like one accustomed to win.

    Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
    Or am I only what I myself know of myself,
    restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
    struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
    yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
    thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
    trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation,
    tossing in expectation of great events,
    powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
    weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
    faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

    Who am I? This or the other?
    Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
    Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
    and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
    Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
    fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.

What makes this so affecting is that he tells us of the doubts and terrors that afflicted him, yet we know of the eerie serenity and equanimity with which he mounted the scaffold to face his own hanging.

It seems though that the other poem he wrote at this time is less well known, and it strikes me as somewhat more pertinent to our times (after all, hopefully there are few of us who will ever face the situation that he did) :

CHRISTIANS AND UNBELIEVERS

    Men go to God when they are sore bestead,
    Pray to him for succour, for his peace, for bread,
    For mercy for them sick, sinning or dead:
    All men do so, Christian and unbelieving.

    Men go to God when he is sore bestead,
    Find him poor and scorned, without shelter or bread,
    Whelmed under weight of the wicked, the weak, the dead:
    Christians stand by God in his hour of grieving.

    God goeth to every man when sore bestead,
    Feedeth body and spirit with his bread,
    For Christians, heathens alike he hangeth dead:
    And both alike forgiving.

In a letter of July 18, 1944, Bonhoeffer offered his own analysis of the ideas he was trying to develop in these verses. He explained to his correspondent :

    The poem about Christians and Unbelievers embodies an idea you will recognize: 'Christians range themselves with God in his suffering;
    that is what distinguishes them from the heathen.'   As Jesus asked in Gethsemane, 'Could ye not watch with me one hour?' That is the
    exact opposite of what the religious man expects from God. Man is challenged to participate in the sufferings of God at the hands of
    a godless world.

    He must therefore plunge himself into the life of a godless world, without attempting to gloss over its ungodliness with a veneer of
    religion or trying to transfigure it. He must live a 'worldly' life and so participate in the suffering of God. He may live a worldly life
    as one emancipated from all false religions and obligations. To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to
    cultivate some particular form of asceticism (as a sinner, a penitent or a saint), but to be a man. It is not some religious act which
    makes a Christian what he is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world.

This is particularly stern stuff for us, who live in an age when religion has pretty much been reduced to a glorified self-help program, a sickeningly shallow way to feel good about ourselves. Even the Christians are now heathens, interested in God only for what He can do for them. As one of the lessons of Bonhoeffer's life and death is the power of faith to quiet a tumultuous soul when events oppress us, so must another be that the experience of God is not a oneway street, where we take, take, take. He does not exist merely to comfort us and heal our petty personal wounds, like some sanctified version of Deepak Chopra. Our approach towards Him serves also, perhaps more importantly, to understand something of the world as it must appear to Him--with billions of souls, besides our own, beset on all sides by sin, crying out for help.

When Bonhoeffer spoke of a godless world he meant something to the effect that God is not an immediate presence to be turned to when we have problems, as He had seemed in earlier times, but that instead we must learn to help ourselves. Mightn't we also say that the world is godless in the sense that we are not willing to participate in the suffering of others in the here and now, but are so consumed with the self that we seek only an escape of some kind from this reality? Bonhoeffer summoned us to live in this world, filled as it is with sin and wickedness, rather than to pine for the next, to lift our gaze from our own navels and to see and feel the suffering of others around us. It is a summons we still choose not to hear.

Bonhoeffer tried to end his letter on a hopeful note, but the final lines are heartbreaking :

When we speak of God in a non-religious way, we must not gloss over the ungodliness of the world, but expose it in a new light.
Now that it has come of age, the world is more godless, and perhaps it is for that very reason nearer to God than ever before.

Forgive me putting it all so clumsily and badly. ... We have to get up nearly every night at 1:30, which is not very good for work
like this.

Maybe Bonhoeffer was right in this, one of his central ideas, and the world is godless because mankind and the world have come of age and we must push God away and stand on our own as if He did not exist. But our continuing focus on ourselves to the exclusion of everything else certainly seems more the mark of an infantile culture than a mature one. If God is nigh, surely it is not because we have done anything to deserve it; witness what was done to this thoughtful, decent man.

GRADE : A

Buy Letters and Papers from Prison at Amazon.com

Also recommended :
-Prisoner for God : Letters and Papers from Prison (1953) (Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-45)(edited by Eberhard Bethge)(translated by Reginald H. Fuller) (read Orrin's review)
-Bonhoeffer : Agent of Grace (2000) (directed by Eric Till 1929-) (read Orrin's review, Grade : A-)

WEBSITES :
    -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : bonhoeffer
    -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : bonhoeffer, dietrich
    -Dietrich Bonhoeffer Home Page (International Bonhoeffer Society)
    -Bonhoeffer's Cell
    -Augsburg Fortress--Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    -Dietrich Bonhoeffer (US Holocaust Memorial Museum)
    -International Network on Personal Meaning : Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    -Bonhoeffer (GLIMPSES FROM CHURCH HISTORY)
    -Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) (Kin's Home Page)
    -ESSAY : Contributions to human rights in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics (Michael L. Westmoreland-White, 01/01/97, Journal of Church & State)
    -ESSAY : Who, exactly, is a Righteous Gentile? : Since 1986 Yad Vashem has declined to honor a Lutheran pastor killed in the fight against Nazism. Undaunted, the lawyer grandson of Rabbi Stephen S. Wise has gone public in his campaign to get Dietrich Bonhoeffer the recognition he feels he deserves. (MARILYN HENRY, Jerusalem Post)
    -ESSAY : Why isn't Bonhoeffer honored at Yad Vashem? (Christian Century, February 25 1998 by Stephen A. Wise)
    -ESSAY : Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Historical" Reading of the Bible
    -ESSAY : First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin: Bonhoeffer's New York (Scott Holland, CrossCurrents)
    -ESSAY : Radical Theology and the Death of God by Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton : Dietrich Bonhoeffer by William Hamilton (Religion Online)
    -ESSAY : The New Godless Theology (Kurt Eggenstein)
    -ESSAY : The Death of God (faithnet)
    -ESSAY : Theology and Philosophy In Dialogue (David R. Crownfield, July 1967, Theology Today)
    -ESSAY : Crouching Tiger, Hidden . . . Bonhoeffer? (Daniel L. Weiss, Breakpoint)
    -ARCHIVES : "dietrich bonhoeffer" (Find Articles)
    -ARCHIVES : bonhoeffer (NY Review of Books)
    -ARCHIVES : bonhoeffer (Mag Portal)
    -REVIEW : of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage By Eberhard Bethge (Beate Ruhm Von Oppen, Theology Today)
    -REVIEW : of Love Letters From Cell 92, edited by Ruth-Alice von Bismarck and Ulrich Kabitz (Wendy Murray Zoba , Christianity Today)
    -REVIEW : of The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer Edited by John W. de Gruchy (Jeffrey Hensley, Journal of Church and State)
    -REVIEW : of Saints and Villains By Denise Giardina (Paul Baumann, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW : of Saints and Villains by Denise Giardina and Cup of Wrath by Mary Glazener : Bonhoeffer: Factual Fictions (Betty Smartt Carter, Books & Culture)

FILM :
    -Bonhoeffer : Agent of Grace (PBS)
    -INFO : Bonhoeffer : Agent of Grace (2000) (Imdb.com)
    -BUY IT : Bonhoeffer : Agent of Grace (Amazon.com)
    -FILMOGRAPHY : Eric Till (Imdb.com)
    -REVIEW : of Bonhoeffer : Agent of Grace (Elesha Coffman, Christianity Today)
    -REVIEW : of Bonhoeffer : Agent of Grace (Craig von Buseck, CBN)
    -REVIEW : of Bonhoeffer : Agent of Grace (Hollywood Jesus Movie Review)
    -REVIEW : of Bonhoeffer : Agent of Grace (Allan R. Andrews, American Reporter)
    -REVIEW : of Hanged on a Twisted Cross and A View From the Underside (Mary Glazener, Sojourners)

GENERAL :
    -REVIEW : of The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive World History. By Robert Royal (Alicia Mosier, First Things)
    -REVIEW : Jan 9, 1997 Thomas Powers: The Conspiracy That Failed
       BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS ARTICLE
       Plotting Hitler's Death: The Story of the German Resistance by Joachim Fest and translated by Bruce Little
       The Unnecessary War: Whitehall and the German Resistance to Hitler by Patricia Meehan
       Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1905-1944 by Peter Hoffmann
       American Intelligence and the German Resistance to Hitler: A Documentary History edited by Jürgen Heideking and Christof Mauch
       The Unseen War in Europe: Espionage and Conspiracy in the Second World War by John H. Waller
       Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany by Noel Annan
    -REVIEW : of Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust, ed. Robert Ericksen and Susannah Heschel (Dagmar Herzog, Tikkun)

3/08/02

The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872-1906)

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first great Black poet; Booker T. Washington called him the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race". Dunbar, the son of ex-slaves, grew up in Dayton, OH, where he was friendly with the Wright Brothers. He had a successful high school career--founding editor of the school paper and elected class president of the predominantly white school--but upon graduation, he was forced to work as an elevator operator. His second book of poetry was praised by William Dean Howells and by age 24, he was one of the most renowned Black literary figures in America.

Dunbar wrote in two different styles. On the one hand, he wrote straightforward
classic verse that was filled with racial pride:

THE COLORED SOLDIERS

    IF the muse were mine to tempt it
    And my feeble voice were strong,
    If my tongue were trained to measures,
    I would sing a stirring song.
    I would sing a song heroic
    Of those noble sons of Ham,
    Of the gallant colored soldiers
    Who fought for Uncle Sam!

    In the early days you scorned them,
    And with many a flip and flout
    Said "These battles are the white man's,
    And the whites will fight them out."
    Up the hills you fought and faltered,
    In the vales you strove and bled,
    While your ears still heard the thunder
    Of the foes' advancing tread.

    Then distress fell on the nation,
    And the flag was drooping low;
    Should the dust pollute your banner?
    No! the nation shouted, No!
    So when War, in savage triumph,
    Spread abroad his funeral pall--
    Then you called the co]ored soldiers,
    And they answered to your call.

    And like hounds unleashed and eager
    For the life blood of the prey,
    Sprung they forth and bore them bravely
    In the thickest of the fray.
    And where'er the fight was hottest,
    Where the bullets fastest fell,
    There they pressed unblanched and fearless
    At the very mouth of hell.

    Ah, they rallied to the standard
    To uphold it by their might;
    None were stronger in the labors,
    None were braver in the fight.
    From the blazing breach of Wagner
    To the plains of Olustee,
    They were foremost in the fight
    Of the battles of the free.

    And at Pillow! God have mercy
    On the deeds committed there,
    An the souls of those poor victims
    Sent to Thee without a prayer.
    Let the fulness of Thy pity
    O'er the hot wrought spirits sway
    Of the gallant colored soldiers
    Who fell fighting on that day!

    Yes, the Blacks enjoy their freedom,
    And they won it dearly,too;
    For the life blood of their thousands
    Did the southern fields bedew.
    In the darkness of their bondage,
    In the depths of slavery's night,
    Their muskets flashed the dawning,
    And they fought their way to light

    They were comrades then and brothers,
    Are they more or less to-day?
    They were good to stop a bullet
    And to front the fearful fray.
    They were citizens and soldiers,
    When rebellion raised its head;
    And the traits that made them worthy,--
    Ah! those virtues are not dead.

    They have shared your nightly vigils,
    They have shared your daily toil;
    And their blood with yours commingling
    Has enriched the Southern soil.
    They have met as fierce a foeman,
    And have been as brave and true.

    And their deeds shall find a record
    In the registry of Fame;
    For their blood has cleansed completely
    Every blot of Slavery's shame.

    So all honor and all glory
    To those noble sons of Ham--
    The gallant colored soldiers
    Who fought for Uncle Sam!

ODE TO ETHIOPIA

    O Mother Race! to thee I bring
    This pledge of faith unwavering,
    This tribute to thy glory.
    I know the pangs which thou didst feel,
    When Slavery crushed thee with its heel,
    With thy dear blood all gory.

    Sad days were those--ah, sad indeed!
    But through the land the fruitful seed
    Of better times was growing.
    The plant of freedom upward sprung,
    And spread its leaves so fresh and young
    Its blossoms now are blowing.

    On every hand in this fair land,
    Proud Ethiope's swarthy children stand
    Beside their fairer neighbor;
    The forests flee before their stroke,
    Their hammers ring, their forges smoke,
    They stir in honest labour.

    They tread the fields where honour calls;
    Their voices sound through senate halls
    In majesty and power.
    To right they cling; thy hymns they sing
    Up to the skies in beauty ring,
    And bolder grow each hour.

    Be proud, my Race, in mind and soul;
    Thy name is writ on Glory's scroll
    In characters of fire.
    High 'mid the clouds of Fame's bright sky
    Thy banner's blazoned folds now fly,
    And truth shall lift them higher.

    Thou hast the right to noble pride,
    Whose spotless robes were purified
    By blood's severe baptism.
    Upon thy brow the cross was laid,
    And labour's painful sweat-beads made
    A consecrating chrism.

    No other race, or white or black,
    When bound as thou wert, to the rack,
    So seldom stooped to grieving;
    No other race, when free again,
    Forgot the past and proved them men
    So noble in forgiving.

    Go on and up! Our souls and eyes
    Shall follow thy continuous rise;
    Our ears shall list thy story
    From bards who from thy root shall spring,
    And proudly tune their lyres to sing
    Of Ethiopia's glory.

WE WEAR THE MASK

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream other-wise,
We wear the mask!

But on the other hand, he was a master of dialect poems:

AN ANTE-BELLUM SERMON.

WE is gathahed hyeah, my brothahs,
In dis howlin' wildaness,
Fu' to speak some words of comfo't
To each othah in distress.
An' we chooses fu' ouah subjic'
Dis--we 'll 'splain it by an' by;
"An' de Lawd said, 'Moses, Moses,'
An' de man said, 'Hyeah am I.'"

Now ole Pher'oh, down in Egypt,
Was de wuss man evah bo'n,
An' he had de Hebrew chillun
Down dah wukin' in his co'n;
'Twell de Lawd got tiahed o' his foolin',
An' sez he: "I 'll let him know--
Look hyeah, Moses, go tell Pher'oh
Fu' to let dem chillun go."

"An' ef he refuse to do it,
I will make him rue de houah,

Fu' I 'll empty down on Egypt
All de vials of my powah."
Yes, he did--an' Pher'oh's ahmy
Was n't wuth a ha'f a dime;
Fu' de Lawd will he'p his chillun,
You kin trust him evah time.

An' yo' enemies may 'sail you
In de back an' in de front;
But de Lawd is all aroun' you,
Fu' to ba' de battle's brunt.
Dey kin fo'ge yo' chains an' shackles
F'om de mountains to de sea;
But de Lawd will sen' some Moses
Fu' to set his chillun free.

An' de lan' shall hyeah his thundah,
Lak a blas' f'om Gab'el's ho'n,
Fu' de Lawd of hosts is mighty
When he girds his ahmor on.
But fu' feah some one mistakes me,
I will pause right hyeah to say,
Dat I 'm still a-preachin' ancient,
I ain't talkin' 'bout to-day.

But I tell you, fellah christuns,
Things 'll happen mighty strange;
Now, de Lawd done dis fu' Isrul,
An' his ways don't nevah change,
An' de love he showed to Isrul
Was n't all on Isrul spent;
Now don't run an' tell yo' mastahs
Dat I 's preachin' discontent.

'Cause I is n't; I 'se a-judgin'
Bible people by deir ac's;
I 'se a-givin' you de Scriptuah,
I 'se a-handin' you de fac's.
Cose ole Pher'oh b'lieved in slav'ry,
But de Lawd he let him see,
Dat de people he put bref in,--
Evah mothah's son was free.

An' dahs othahs thinks lak Pher'oh,
But dey calls de Scriptuah liar,
Fu' de Bible says "a servant
Is a-worthy of his hire."
An' you cain't git roun' nor thoo dat,
An' you cain't git ovah it,
Fu' whatevah place you git in,
Dis hyeah Bible too 'll fit.

So you see de Lawd's intention,
Evah sence de worl' began,
Was dat His almighty freedom
Should belong to evah man,
But I think it would be bettah,
Ef I 'd pause agin to say,
Dat I 'm talkin' 'bout ouah freedom
In a Bibleistic way.

But de Moses is a-comin',
An' he 's comin', suah and fas'
We kin hyeah his feet a-trompin',
We kin hyeah his trumpit blas'.
But I want to wa'n you people,
Don't you git too brigity;
An' don't you git to braggin'
'Bout dese things, you wait an' see.

But when Moses wif his powah
Comes an' sets us chillun free,
We will praise de gracious Mastah
Dat has gin us liberty;
An' we 'll shout ouah halleluyahs,
On dat mighty reck'nin' day,
When we 'se reco'nised ez citiz'--
Huh uh! Chillun, let us pray!

Inevitably, in a Reconstruction America that was both nostalgic and regionalist, his dialect poems were wildly popular & tended to overshadow his more serious verse. As a result, he has always been a figure of some controversy in Black America; alternately dismissed for popularizing a derogatory stereotype of Blacks and hailed as a great literary figure. Dunbar captures this dichotomy in his own poem, The Poet:

The Poet

He sang of life, serenely sweet,
With , now ant then, a deeper note.
From some high peak, nigh yet remote,
He voiced the world's absorbing beat.

He sang of love when earth was young,
And Love, itself, was in his lays.
But ah, the world, it turned to praise
A jingle in a broken tongue.

Given the perspective of 100 years, it seems to me that he deserves to be read by all Americans.

GRADE: B+

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)(T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot 1888-1965)

I would not presume to claim that I understand all, maybe not even much, of what Eliot meant in his allusion-packed Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, but what I comprehend of it I really like. Moreover, rereading it just recently, I was struck by how frequently the words and phrases of the poem have been borrowed by subsequent authors, particularly how many titles are derived from the poem. So, before I say a few words about the themes Eliot seems to be mining, here's the poem with hyperlinks to the works by others that I'm aware of, which derive at least their titles from this piece :

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

                                                            S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
                                                            A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
                                                            Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
                                                            Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
                                                            Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
                                                            Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. [translation]

LET us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

                                              The muttering retreats
                                                                                                                                        5
                                              Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

                                              To lead you to an overwhelming question...
                                                                                                                                10
                                              Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.