episodes of my own learning: the most decisive one, the eeriest one,
and the most anguishing one.!
Twas in my early rwent
‘came from several diff
my resolve was firm:
style as personality, style as the actual material body of inner being. Beforeava field was the most decisive episode of my li
impact of Stevens, revealing to
ns fashion since then.
with abook on George Herbert, realizing
my energy was aging, and Thad no money
‘One night, exhausted, I tried to think how to
a respite, Afiera year
three hours a week,
ing load; David was
ay son was an only child, and I thought he needed an available com-
the house, I had resolved never to work when he was at home and
h my life of learning and teaching —indistinguishable to
life of writing —was a patchy, often fatigued, and always anxious
1 hours after he went to sleep
-any adolescent, he was staying up later than Iwas. My
ry tomy circadian
ie «arly hours of the morning, l envied my male colleagues, who, in
Ws seemed to have everything done for them by their spouses. Marjorie
Ys essay saying chat what a woman scholar needed was a wife never
true
lat" —at least from what the typical scholar is thought to be. 'm a eritie
than a scholar, a reader and writer more taken by texts than by contexts,
| was very young I continually asked myself, as I read through
the works of poets, why some texts seemed so much more accomplished and
‘moving than others. Why was Milton's “L’Allegro
“On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cou
Joseph Conrad remarks on “that myste-
roducing striking effects by means
last word of the highest art.” I wanted, hardly
knowing how, to detect the means of that power.
Actitic of my suppose, “learned” inaway—thati, she has amemory
for stories, styles, and structures she has seen before, and she understands the
(Gcom the large forms of myth and nar-
of prepositions and artic
rons of words and synthia history of thet er, She has—at
synthetic statements,
Pipa ition needs an anecdote, I recall here
€lto substitute fora colleague in a term course in Romantic Poetry.
dl the work of the six ix poets that tw ‘was to teach,
1 could think of beginning “The Romantic poets are” or
lo” and, finding none of them true, descended to looking
began, “Wordsworth and Coleridge both” or “Byron
individual poets, but she
apologize to students beforehand.)
ve had to accept the limits of my own capacities: the:
and imagir
¥ scholars are incompe
‘Tounderstand a poem it’s necessary above
both the poem a
I ray sc ‘easy way to take the measure of a
He it can be used to support any schotad
he fount of poetry in the house, qu
sation; my father was the (often unreasonable) pedagogical ex
us to learn new languages. From workingas paymaster
for the United Fruit Company in Cuba and later teaching En,
Rico, my father was fluent in Spanish; he added French and I
graduate study to qualify as a high-school teacher of Romance languages. SO
antiphonal chorus). Classical Latin—Caesar and Virgil
school. Language took on, under these many for
cable shimmer, and I soon saw the disparate poet
(o—and I added them to the tore of English poems I was finding,
the house. In high school it was French poets that drew
re, especially Ronsard (because I had discovered Shakespeare's sonnets) and
Baudelaire (because I had discovered T.S. Eliot). The natural act of a critic is
to compare, and I was always comparing.
was always When I wrote my first “poem
that a poem was something that scanned and rliymed. It
teen, when I read and me
saw that a poem cou
nets, and launched myself into a steady
the following ten years the ony honeIegends of my childhood all had to do with words:
at nine months thar by the time I was one, I knew a hun~
dred words er my parents’ death
desk headed "We
say the “Our Fat , “Daddy, ean Tsay
and did. (Why any father would wane to teach his four-year-old to re-
cite the Pater Noster is another question.) My mother (who by the rules of the
Boston school system had to relinquish at marriage her work asa primary-school
-vas the fount of poetry in the house, quoting it frequently in conver~
x father was the (often unreasonable) pedagogical experimenter, seeing
4 ee hhow far he could press us to learn new languages. From working as a paymaster
“em sont beginning “The Romantic poets are” or for the United Fruit Company in Cuba and later teaching English in Puerto
irre anal thean rues dlasceidad w looking: he added French and Italian during post-
‘graduate study to qual
‘we children coo (my sister and I, tha
house after school) were to lear frst Spanish, and then French, and th
Latin was being purveyed to us at church and at my
chool (we sang high and low Mass, the standard Latin
asthe Holy Week Tenebrae, as well as the Psalms i
antiphonal chorus). Classical Larin—Caesar and Virgil—was added in hi
Language took on, under these many forms, a strange and inexp
cable shimmer, and I soon saw the disparate poetic effects possible indifferent
‘ ii nd prosodic systems. My father gave ws simple poems in Span
ae ee times of my own capa inti quer, Dario—and L added them tothe store of English poems] was finding
3 ei, are to meas compelling ax the Iabyrintha. in the anthol ‘the house. In high school it was French poets that drew
A a Pet be incompetent asatheo= tne, expecially Ronsard (because {had discovered Shakespeare's sor
% he nyelictars/nre [ncoppecein aa: aaa ‘Baudelaire (because I had discovered T. S. Eliot). The natural act of a
mr “sai here nl aa 10 compare, and I was always comparing.
e te a scholar—without a profound knowl- ‘Twas always writing, too. When I wrote my first “
‘ 1p in on a single poem to illustrate an ideolog= scanned and rhymed.
tends to falsify both the poem and the poet in question, i
easy way to take the measure of a lyric: it must be seen
rolksely Mase. From the tne 1
every ay exe Suey began wa sung Requiem
pen every day was necessarily the monthly or yearly
me's death. With the Mass and the Dis dre as dily brea,
never deprived. Against the disappointments and losses
n ey were obeying Cardinal Cushing’ for
pulpit, under pain of mortal
se, 1 couldn't ever publicly reveal what 1
‘two friends and I heard that certain nuns had warned
We were innocent
‘our parents and getting A's and we didn’
this tony to Crea Misa he lage and sid that
+ in his high school had said to him at fiftee
te oe.
ANTHODUETION 7
Anellectual life, In my classes in BY
‘not only did { come upon a new way of looking at
ial and evidential expo-
ion’Test and applied for
shelved the idea of
‘The mind's a pros
Knows no joy u
‘The innocent curtains are blown apart,
‘Olympus presses a golden shower.
Jing and chen elation that L felt when
‘pon me, but was oo ignorantat hat
though I tried to make them
mally accurate and formally eompetent. At lat, 2s U happily wrote
found my true genre, the more prosaic one of criticism, and
a esse hes des p4 1Ww OCEAN, THE BIRD, AND THE SCHOLAR
xy where Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and Elizabeth Bishop were present
‘one of them asked me if1 weote poetry. I confessed to my lingering i
ing about stopping, They laughed me to seorn, telling me that
A been meant to be a poet and had tried to stop, I'd immediately have found
Jfprey to migraines, indigestion, insomnia, or something worse, thatthe
had to ask why thought such,
(operas, poems, autobiograpl
|. My first external action stemming from independence of
INTROPUETION 9
Terman, gave me my frst permanent model of
vid, andl pene
emotions was tacitly
Tencountered
ivating em
and had left what I saw
jveness. When I
~ Jonson which express anted both for us asa family
sud for my work: “Freedom and truth; with love from those begot.”
professional experience asa graduate student was hear the chairman
{Harvard say to me warningly, as he signed my
seek of classes, “You know we don!
2" 1 left his office; recommended my th
‘another (Douglas Bush, who, like John Kelleher, knew
frst interview (“He's not even a
aching our the course number him-
‘course in Chaucer. But he couldn't
class from eight to nine o
und felt I didn’t have a job
following year the chairman
5» began to ask me to
agues went on leaves in
asked me to give a course of my own. A striking advance
con the other hand, took reviewing as the
see why it should be looked down
‘on, Because of my slender means, 1 took every reviewing job I could gets re-
‘viewing was an ageeeable and incelleetual way to earn money, and it became
he new. To be asked to write on a new book by John
or Elizabeth Bishop was already a joys and re-
the general public taught me to aim in my prose for
jon and a personal voice. After Thad been writing for some years for the
York Times Book Review and the New York Review of Books, Uhad a
illiann Shawn ofthe Now Yorker, asking me tobe t
im, Mr, Shawn gave free rein, unlimited space,
el hetaleofmy very frst New Yorker review, because ised ightthey are connected in the fluent progress of a poem—
and stylistic originality. Each poet presents a new stylistic
in each case,
‘map by which one can deaw a path
ting othe view (moet vividly expressed by Rand
anu ponderous; to show (onsra Coleridge and others)
power and fineness of his
asa writer who made original
the lyric genres. In commenting on Dickinson, I wanted
‘The presumption of commentary,
sry works are complex enough
presumption of aesthetic
relations governing the structural and formal shapes theysaecustomed to being accompa
1s did when I encountered the absence:
‘emotional upheaval known as m
vf the young, Meanwhile, those of us Jn what Stevens
tiant and productive atmosphere” of poetry eransmit as far as
and in the classroom, the beautiful, subversive, sustaining,
i ng, legacy of the poets. The pieces of writing in this col-
‘The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar
How the Arts Help Us to Live
embodiments of
jon program
“and how the study’ ofthe humanities shou
~ Liwant to propose that che humanities shoul