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RangePd - Pg
AuthorPearse, Vincent
AuthorPELL, EDWARD
AuthorPelling, Henry
AuthorPENROSE, WILLIAM 0.
AuthorPERETZ, DON
AuthorPERETZ, MARTIN
AuthorPerkins, Robert H.
AuthorPERLMAN, SELIG
AuthorPERLMUTTER, NATHAN
AuthorPERLMUTTER, WILLIAM M. MCCORD / MELVIN WULF / NATHAN
AuthorPERLSTEIN, RICK
AuthorPerrin, Sol
AuthorPerrow, Charles
AuthorPERSON, ETHEL SPECTOR
AuthorPERTSCHUK, MICHAEL
AuthorPETERS, S.
AuthorPETERSEN, CHARLES
AuthorPETERSEN, WILLIAM
AuthorPETERSON, JANE
AuthorPETERSON, THOMAS LAND / WALLACE C.
AuthorPETERSON, VIRGILIA
AuthorPETERSON, WALLACE C.
AuthorPETRIE, M. ANN
AuthorPETTENGILL, JOHN S.
AuthorPETTINGEIL, PHOEBE
AuthorPETTINGELL, PHOEBE
Paid articleFilling in the Blanks (March 2010)
On Poetry Filling in the Blanks By Phoebe Pettingell In her Introduction to Nick Lantz' We Don't Know We Don't Know (Graywolf, 76 pp., paper, $15.00), Linda Gregerson reminds us that the fool...
Paid articleLyrics of Passion and Pain (January 2010)
On Poetry Lyrics of Passion and Pain By Phoebe Pettingell Vera Pavlova started out as a musician. She sang in church choirs and studied the history of music at the Gnessin Academy in her...
Paid articleChaucer Redux (May 2009)
On Poetry Chaucer Redux By Phoebe Pettingell Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is one of the most talked-about yet least read works of English literature. Though considered to be the...
Paid articleLyrical Romances (September 2009)
On Poetry Lyrical Romances By Phoebe Pettingell What distinction, if any, should be made between Shakespeare’s sonnets and whatever verse has been most admired by later generations,...
Paid articleWhen Verse is the Only Language (March 2009)
On Poetry When Verse Is the Only Language By Phoebe Pettingell EARLIER THIS YEAR, the world celebrated the centennial of Charles Darwin, one of the most transformative thinkers of modern...
Paid articleTwo Cheers for Romanticism (January 2009)
On Poetry Two Cheers for Romanticism By Phoebe Pettingell For English majors of the Woodstock generation two groups of writers were particularly resonant: the Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord...
Paid articleNaughty Games and Imperial Imagism (November 2008)
On Poetry Naughty Games and Imperial Imagism By Phoebe Pettingell THE EPIGRAM WAS once considered a kind of poetry useful for clever commentary on the culture. Marcus Valerius Martialis...
Paid articleHow Verse Influences Verse (September 2008)
On Poetry How Verse Influences Verse By Phoebe Pettingell FRIENDSHIPS AMONG POETS can ignite sparks that flame into innovation. Consider those evenings at London’s Mermaid Tavern with William...
Paid articleVerse as the Supreme Fiction (May 2009)
On Poetry Verse as the Supreme Fiction By Phoebe Pettingell SINCE THE ADVENT of Modernism, definitions of poetry have become blurred. One can no longer define verse by the use of meter, much...
Paid articleWe Need the Future Now (March 2008)
On Poetry We Need the Future Now By Phoebe Pettingell The Futurist poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) derives its effects through wordplay, rhythms and similar devices almost impossible...
Paid articleBefore Optimism Turned to Ashes (January 2008)
On Poetry Before Optimism Turned to Ashes By Phoebe Pettingell Frank O’hara was the John Keats of the New York School of Poets. Two of its larger figures, Kenneth Koch and John Ashbery, lived...
Paid articleWhen Poems Mattered (November 2007)
On Poetry When Poems Mattered By Phoebe Pettingell The Other Day, my eye was caught by a large banner hanging in the ground-floor windows of a local library proclaiming, “POEMS.” Beneath...
Paid articleTranslating Our Times (September 2007)
On Poetry Translating Our Times By Phoebe Pettingell British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes died in October 1998, two months into his 69th year. To mark the anniversary, two unusual examples of...
Paid articleNovel Expressions of Identity (August 2007)
On Poetr y Novel Expressions of Identity By Phoebe Pettingell WHENINAHANDFUL OF WORDS they capture the salient details of a particular locale or a signal event, poets have something in...
Paid articlePastoral Impulses (March 2007)
On Poetr y Pastoral Impulses By Phoebe Pettingell HIGHLY ADVANCED societies are often gripped by nostalgia for a less complicated era. In Alexandria during the third century B.C.E....
Paid articlePerspectives in Dialect (January 2007)
On Poetry Perspectives in Dialect By Phoebe Pettingell What poet’s statue is most commonly found in American cities? No, it is not Shakespeare’s; neither is it Walt...
Paid articleSinging About the Culture (January 2006)
Writers & Writing Singing About the Culture By Phoebe Pettingell IT is impossible for me to talk dispassionately about The New Leader. My first encounter with it came, somewhat...
Paid articleThe Importance of Being Humorous (November 2005)
On Poetry The Importance of Being Humorous By Phoebe Pettingell Kenneth Koch, who died in 2002, was the major American comic poet of recent times. Always fresh, sometimes cheeky, he was an...
Paid articleShards of Meaning (September 2005)
On Poetry Shards of Meaning By Phoebe Pettingell Modernist ERA writers tended to veer away from linear narrative and favor fragmentary dialogue or interior monologues from varying...
Paid articlePassion from the Praine (July 2005)
On Poetry Passion from the Prairie By Phoebe Pettingell Before Minnesota could boast of Garrison Keillor, it had already produced an engagingly folksy teacher: Robert Bly. Just as Keillor...
Paid articleThe Private Voice of Robert Lowell (May 2005)
On Poetry The Private Voice of Robert Lowell By Phoebe Pettingell Throughout his turbulent career, Robert Lowell kept critics and readers off balance. Just when the latest phase of his poetry...
Paid articleContrarian Women (March 2005)
On Poetry Contrarian Women By Phoebe Pettingell The aggressive, eye-catching title of Camille Paglia's fifth critical study, Break, Blow, Burn (Pantheon, 272 pp., $20.00), makes you...
Paid articleFantasies of Our Identity (February 2005)
On Poetry Fantasies of Our Identity By Phoebe Pettingell A few years ago, I attended a provocative lecture in St. Louis by a visiting English historian. The audience consisted primarily of...
Paid articleRebels with a Cause (November 2004)
On Poetry Rebels with a Cause By Phoebe Pettingell On May 30,1593—a year before the Spanish Armada attacked England—the brilliant 29-yearold poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe met...
Paid articleReading Minds (September 2004)
On Poetry Reading Minds By Phoebe Pettingell Poetry is often derided as a fundamentally irrational art fashioned from emotional reactions rather than reason and subjective impressions...
Paid articleSalt for the Spirit (July 2004)
On Poetry Salt for the Spirit By Phoebe Pettingell The daily struggles of working-class men and women who forge hopeful lives out of bleak circumstances remain the focus of the prolific...
Paid articleMaking Sense of Nature (May 2004)
On Poetry Making Sense of Nature By Phoebe Pettingell During the 1960s the works of Dylan Thomas were taught in schools as if they were literature's latest model. Had the Welshpoetnot...
Paid articleThree Perennials in Bloom (March 2004)
On Poete Three Perennials in Bloom By Phoebe Pettingell Tracking the journey of a poet whose work has engaged me from the outset affords a particular pleasure—and this spring finds three such...
Paid articleEdward Thomas' Haunting imagination (January 2004)
On Poetry Edward Thomas' Haunting Imagination By Phoebe Pettingell Edward Thomas (1878-1917) wrote no verse until the last two and a half years of his brief life. Starting at age 18, however,...
Paid articleReturn of the Peasant Poet (November 2003)
On Poetry Return of the Peasant Poet By Phoebe Pettingell Asked to name the greatest 19th-century English nature poet, most readers answer, "Wordsworth." In John Clare: A Biography...
Paid articleIreland's Magician (September 2003)
On Poetry Ireland's Magician By Phoebe Pettingell While the reputations of most 20thcentury bards wax and wane, William Butler Yeats continues to enthrall readers and biographers. We...
Paid articleThe Many Voices of Pablo Neruda (July 2003)
On Poetry The Many Voices of Pablo Neruda By Phoebe Pettingell The Chilean writer known as Pablo Neruda— who was born in 1904 and christened Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto—grew up with the...
Paid articleThe Music of Words (May 2003)
On Poetry The Music of Words By Phoebe Pettingell For much of the 20th century a fierce debate raged among English-speaking poets and their readers about the value of traditional uses of...
Paid articleThe American Poets Project (March 2003)
On Poetry The American Poets Project By Phoebe Pettingell The Library of America, now 22 years old, has inaugurated a new series, the American Poets Project. Supported by a gift in honor of...
Paid articleThe Art of Becoming (January 2003)
On Poetry The Art of Becoming By Phoebe Pettingell Many contemporary poets certainly bear some blame for the steady shrinkage of their audience; it is unlikely that readers will rush home...
Paid articleRomantic and Modern Antiheroes (November 2002)
On Poetry Romantic and Modern Antiheroes By Phoebe Pettingell George Gordon Noel Byron (1788-1824), who inherited his title of Lord, is often considered the epitome of the Romantic...
Paid articleReflections on Anxiety and Hazard (September 2002)
On Poetry Reflections on Anxiety and Hazard By Phoebe Pettingell Back in the 1940s, W.H. Auden labeled his era "the age of anxiety." The tag can be tied to the present as well. Almost weekly...
Paid articleOld Masters of Suffering (July 2002)
On Poetry Old Masters of Suffering By Phoebe Pettingell W.H.Auden's much-anthologized poem, "Musée des Beaux Arts," begins memorably, "About suffering they were never wrong,/ The Old...
Paid articleA Coney Island of the Soul (May 2002)
BOOKS A Coney Island of the Soul By Phoebe Pettingell Growing up in the Midwest, I told anyone who would listen that my ambition was to live in New York and write. My high school...
Paid articleLeithauser's Reconciliations (March 2002)
On Poetry Leithauser's Reconciliations By Phoebe Pettingell In the 20 years since he published his first book, Brad Leithauser has written novels as well as poetry, and been equally successful...
Paid articleNo Things But Ideas (January 2002)
On Poetry No Things But Ideas By Phoebe Pettingell At the start of the last century, Romanticism and the song-like lyric marked most poetic movements. From the teens to the 1930s, ideabased...
Paid articleLyrics in Periods of Crisis (November 2001)
On Poetry Lyrics in Periods of Crisis By Phoebe Pettingell Surrealism and absurdism are hardly recent constructs, yet their fractured, mysterious landscapes— both like and unlike anything...
Paid articleDickinson Rediscovered (September 2001)
On Poetry Dickinson Rediscovered By Phoebe Pettingell Few poets have provoked as much speculation as Emily Dickinson, the mysterious recluse who was hardly published in her lifetime. Almost...
Paid articleMillay's Passionate Life (July 2001)
On Poetry Millay's Passionate Life By Phoebe Pettingell In the 1920s and '30s Edna St. Vincent Millay was ranked among the very greatest poets of all time; she was often compared with Keats...
Paid articleFishing for Milton's Meaning (May 2001)
On Poetry Fishing for Milton's Meaning By Phoebe Pettingell Back in 1978 Stanley Fish wrote an intriguing little book, The Living Temple: GeorgeHerbert and Catechizing, which confronted a...
Paid articleTo Hell or Heaven and Back (March 2001)
On Poetry To Hell or Heaven and Back By Phoebe Pettingell Attending a number of recent funerals brought home to me the overpowering influence Dante has had on people who probably have...
Paid article'Scorn Not the Sonnet' (January 2001)
On Poetry 'Scorn Not the Sonnet' By Phoebe Pettingell Wordsworth's familiar phrase correctly indicates that the sonnet has come in for its fair share of disfavor over the years. Many great...
Paid articleEntering Eliot's Mind (November 2000)
On Poetry Entering Eliot's Mind By Phoebe Pettingell Throughout the many years of modernist domination in academia, several generations of literature majors grew up on a rigorous diet...
Paid articlePainful Mysteries (September 2000)
On Poetry Painful Mysteries By Phoebe Pettingell The myth of Oedipus, King of Thebes, haunted authors in antiquity. In the 20th century, it became the basis for Freudian psychoanalysis...
Paid articleIn Love with Shakespeare (July 2000)
On Poetry In Love with Shakespeare By Phoebe Pettingell What was William Shakespeare like? Critics, theater directors, actors, historians, and readers have been trying to find the answer to...
Paid articleThe Power of Laughter (May 2000)
On Poetry The Power of Laughter By Phoebe Pettingell One of the happier developments in postmodern culture has been the disintegration of hard and fast boundaries between "high" and "low"...
Paid articleMeanings for the Millennium (March 2000)
On Poetry Meanings for the Millennium By Phoebe Pettingell It is too soon to tell what the major poetry trends of the 21st century will be. One hundred years ago, W.B. Yeats was still writing...
Paid articleThe Unpoetic Pound (December 1999)
On Poetry THE UNPOETIC POUND By Phoebe Pettingell Twenty-Seven years after his death, Ezra Pound still manages to generate controversy. A new book by Leon Surette, Pound in Purgatory·: From...
Paid articleA Pageant of Poetry (November 1999)
Writers & Writing A PAGEANT OF POETRY By Phoebe Pettingell Perhaps you caught up on sleep during your college "From Beowulf to Thomas Hardy" survey course. Or maybe, like some of us, your...
Paid articleThe Furies of Ted Hughes (September 1999)
Writers & Writing THE FURIES OF TED HUGHES By Phoebe Pettingell For ages, European (and later, American) literature modeled itself on the forms of ancient Greece and Rome. Throughout the...
Paid articleIn Psychology's Shadow (July 1999)
Writers & Writing IN PSYCHOLOGY'S SHADOW By Phoebe Pettingell The last few years have witnessed a rich spate of prominent poets' biographies. Critical methods suggesting that who he or she is...
Paid articleThe Return of Romanticism (June 1999)
On Poetry THE RETURN OF ROMANTICISM By Phoebe Pettingell Poetic tastes have taken numerous turnings throughout the 20th century, and now they seem to be doubling back to where they began—with...
Paid articleHollander's Poetic Playfulness (April 1999)
Writers & Writing HOLLANDER'S POETIC PLAYFULNESS By Phoebe Pettingell In the last century many poets still played a game that probably dated from the Renaissance. Participants were given a...
Paid articlePoetry Read in Canoes (January 1999)
Writers & Writing POETRY READ IN CANOES By Phoebe Pettingell This century has witnessed the erosion of a general American reading audience for poetry. It did not start out that way....
Paid articleReturn of the Epic (December 1998)
On Poetry RETURN OF THE EPIC By Phoebe Pettingell For the better part of the 20th century poets have tried to sound as unlike their Victorian forebears as possible. Instead of comprehensive,...
Paid articleCriticism As an Art (November 1998)
Writers & Writing CRITICISM AS AN ART By Phoebe Pettingell The Finest criticism is an art form in itself, not merely moonlight from the sun of a primary work. Charles Rosen's Romantic Poets,...
Paid articleViereck's Puppets (August 1998)
Writers & Writing VIERECK'S PUPPETS By Phoebe Pettingell For almost 60 years the indefatigable Peter Viereck has honed his wit and offered shrewd cultural judgments in spirited formal...
Paid articleWordsworth's Secret Life (June 1998)
On Poetry WORDSWORTH'S SECRET LIFE By Phoebe Pettingell CENTRAL to the ethos of the 19th century was a belief in geniuses who transformed the world—men like Michelangelo, Shakespeare,...
Paid articleHughes Among the Superstars (February 1998)
Writers & Writing HUGHES AMONG THE SUPERSTARS By Phoebe Pettingell England's Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, has not been regarded as one of Erato's superstars on this side of the Atlantic. He...
Paid articleResurrecting the Liberal Keats (December 1997)
On Poetry RESURRECTING THE LIBERAL KEATS By Phoebe Pettingell Six hundred pages seems a lot of biography for a life that ended at age 25. So I approached Andrew Motion's Keats (Farrar Straus...
Paid articleBurgess Byrning (November 1997)
Writers & Writing BURGESS BYRNING By Phoebe Pettingell Anthony Burgess' posthumously issued final work turns out to be an epic poem called Byrne (Carroll & Graf, 150 pp., $20.00). This comes...
Paid articleA Woolf for All Seasons (June 1997)
Writers & Writing A WOOLF FOR ALL SEASONS By Phoebe Pettingell There have been a number of Virginia Woolfs presented to the public over the last three decades. Back in the 1960s, she was...
Paid articleHow Pleasant to Know Mr. Eliot (May 1997)
On Poetry HOW PLEASANT TO KNOW MR. ELIOT By Phoebe Pettingell For several decades, T. S. Eliot was modern poetry. That dying fall in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," all those different...
Paid articleEpistolary Eavesdropping (March 1997)
Writers & Writing EPISTOLARY EAVESDROPPING By Phoebe Pettingell Who among us hasn't wished at some point to eavesdrop on the conversation of great writers? Those evenings in Switzerland or...
Paid articleTwentieth Century Blues (December 1996)
On Poetry TWENTIETH CENTURY BLUES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Accurately or not, we tend to associate past eras of poetry with a dominant style: metaphysical mysticism for the 17th century,...
Paid articleClassics for the Present (October 1996)
Writers & Writing CLASSICS FOR THE PRESENT BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL As we count down the 20th century s final years, certain common traits in its poetry become clear Whether written in a time of...
Paid articleThat Ol' Time Modernism (August 1996)
On Poetry THAT OL' TIME MODERNISM BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL TO THOSE OF US who find ourselves on the far side of 50, it seems only yesterday that the Modernists and their disciples were enjoining...
Paid articleTwo Cockney Visionaries (June 1996)
Writers & Wftiting TWO COCKNEY VISIONARIES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL THE STRENGTH of Peter Ackroyd's Blake (Knopf, 399 pp., $35.00) lies in the biographer's ability to explain so much that had...
Paid articleHeine's Devilish Heroism (January 1996)
Writers & Writing HEINE'S DEVILISH HEROISM BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL HENRICH HEINE (1795-1856) does not quite qualify for the peak of Parnassus, where Western literature's all-stars —the likes of...
Paid articleVendler's Letter to the World (December 1995)
On Poetry VENDLER'S LETTER TO THE WORLD BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL POETRY CRITICISM, with rare exception, does not appeal to the mass of readers. In their search for an amusing attack on the latest fat...
Paid articleSurvivors' Stories (October 1995)
Writers &Writmg SURVIVORS' STORIES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL STANLEY KUNITZ has proved to be the survivor of his generation of poets. Born the same decade as Langston Hughes. Theodore Roethke, W. H....
Paid articleRecasting Our Icons (July 1995)
Writers & Writing RECASTING OUR ICONS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL WALT WHITMAN and Ralph Waldo Emerson are two members of a 19th-century New England trinity (Emily Dickinson is the third) that continues...
Paid articleMerrill's Last Act (June 1995)
On Poetry MERRILL'S LAST ACT BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL THE HEART ATTACK that carried off James Merrill last February, a few weeks short of his 69th birthday, caught the poet's friends and fans by...
Paid articleCole's New Look (March 1995)
Writers &Writing COLE'S NEW LOOK BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL AN ASTUTE CRITIC I know has observed that it is not uncommon for young would-be poets to produce one, perhaps two "promising" collections...
Paid articleThings Go Better With Koch (January 1995)
Writers & Writing THINGS GO BETTER WITH KOCH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL EIGHT YEARS ago Kenneth Koch, then 61, looked back with amusement at that long-gone era when he first began to establish himself...
Paid articleAnna of All Rus (September 1995)
On Poetry ANNA OF ALL RUS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL EARLY IN THIS CENTURY, a Russian teenager who wanted to begin publishing her poetry was denied use of the family name by her father. So she set...
Paid articlePoetic Jekylls and Hydes (October 1994)
Writers & Writing POETIC JEKYLLS AND HYDES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL FAR AND AWAY the most affecting chapter in Lives of the English Poets is Samuel Johnson's account of his doomed friend Richard...
Paid articleJane Made Plain (August 1994)
Writers & Writing JANE MADE PLAIN BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL IN 1796, shortly after checking into a London hotel, a young Jane Austen happily wrote to her sister Cassandra: "Here I am once more in...
Paid articleA Warmer Frost (June 1994)
On Poetry A WARMER FROST BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL IN THE LATTER YEARS of his long career, Robert Frost became America's most revered and beloved poet. Those of us old enough to remember John F....
Paid articlePlath and the Perils of Biography (March 1994)
Writers & Writing PLATH AND THE PERILS OF BIOGRAPHY BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL JANET MALCOLM has created a literary niche for herself as a chronicler of quarrels. Ten years ago, In the Freud Archives...
Paid articleIdylls of Tennyson (January 1994)
Writers & Writing IDYLLS OF TENNYSON BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL TWENTIETH-CENTURY critics have tended to see Alfred, Lord Tennyson as the quintessential Victorian poet: sonorously portentous, his glum...
Paid articlePHILIP LEVINE'S DAILY BREAD (December 1993)
On Poetry PHILIP LEVINE'S DAILY BREAD BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL ^^ohn Keats considered poets poor subjects for biography because their lives are often "the most unpoetical of any thing in existence."...
Paid articleWhen Mom Is the Muse (November 1993)
Writers & Writing WHEN MOM IS THE MUSE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL WHEN PHILIP LARKIN died in 1985 at age 63, his poetic reputation was at its peak in his native England. Critics and the reading public...
Paid articleRichard Kenney Zeroes In (September 1993)
Writers & Writing RICHARD KENNEY ZEROES IN BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Even in the final decade of this century, our culture is still struggling to graft the imagery of quarks, DNA, black holes, nuclear...
Paid articleThe Hostess with the Mostest (July 1993)
Writers & Writing THE HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The scene: It is a summer afternoon in rural England, circa 1920. Against the backdrop of a sprawling Tudor manor, swarms of...
Paid articleSinging in the Dark Times (May 1993)
On Poetry SINGING IN THE DARK TIMES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In one of his more aphoristic poems written after World War II, Bertolt Brecht asks, "In the dark times, will there also be singing?" And...
Paid articleThe Lowest Neurotic Denominator (May 1993)
Writers & Writing THE LOWEST NEUROTIC DENOMNATOR BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Since her death in 1979 at the age of 68, Elizabeth Bish-op's reputation has waxed to earn her a place among the leading...
Paid articlePoetry by the Numbers (March 1993)
Writers & Writing POETRY BY THE NUMBERS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Our culture seems obsessed with statistics. In clearheaded moments, most will acknowledge that figures can be manipulated to prove...
Paid articleA MUSE WRITES TO HER POET (January 1993)
Writers & Writing AMUSE WRITES TO HER POET BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL A JL JL OTRFjo>r«OFWiUiamButlerYeatsknowsthatMaud Gonne was the Irish poet's lifelong Muse, and unattainable beloved. Until age...
Paid articleVan Duyn's Rich Broth (December 1992)
On Poetry VAN DUYN'S RICH BROTH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL United States, is one of the most appealing and accessible writers around today. Her directness and clarity recall a distinguished line of...
Paid articleA Broken Window's Heart (November 1992)
Writers & Writing A BROKEN WINDOW'S HEART BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL "Ififeel feel personally as if the top of my head were taken off," Emily Dickinson wrote, "I know that is poetry." Gjertrud...
Paid articleEmily Dickinson's Horizons (September 1992)
Writers & Writing EMILY DICKINSON'S HORIZONS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL TRADITIONALLY, Walt Whitman is considered the bard of vastness, the poet of the American Sublime. Emily Dickinson is seen as his...
Paid articleThe Passion of Jean Garrigue (July 1992)
Writers & Writing THE PASSION OF JEAN GARRIGUE by PHOEBE PETTINGEL Upon hearing Edna St. Vincent Millay read in the 1930s, the young Jean Garrigue rushed out and spent her entire meager...
Paid articleThe Gamut of A. MacLeish (June 1992)
On Poetry THE GAMUT OF A. MACLEISH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In the decade since his death, Archibald MacLeish's poetic reputation has been in limbo. During the 1920shewas regarded by many...
Paid articleThe Renaissance Revised (May 1992)
Writers & Writing THE RENAISSANCE REVISED BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The modern era of English poetry bloomed in the 16th century and blossomed in the 17th. What was written before then requires...
Paid articlePoe-et or Poe-seur? (March 1992)
Writers & Writing POE-ET OR POE-SEUR? BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Edgar Allan Poe is something of a mystery. On the one hand, he has been equally celebrated for his poetry, fiction and criticism. He is...
Paid articlePoetry and Private Lives (February 1992)
Writers & Writing POETRY AND PRIVATE LIVES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Though reviewers continue to complain that everyone is tired of hearing about the brief, bright careers and tragic deaths of Anne...
Paid articleNemerov's Gnomic Conclusions (December 1991)
On Poetry NEMEROV'S GNOMIC FAREWELL BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Dead poets never sound quite the same as they did when alive. We approach a completed body of work very differently than we do the...
Paid articleLooking Hard at Hopkins (December 1991)
Writers & Writing LOOKING HARD AT HOPKINS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL ?VERWHELMED by the dirt and brutal poverty of 19thcentury Dublin, the fastidious new priest wrote plaintively in a sonnet sent...
Paid articleA Poet of the Masses (October 1991)
Writers & Writing A POET OF THE MASSES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Fmends called him Charlie or Sandy. He was the shy yet ambitious teenage son of hard-working, dirt poor Swedish immigrants, and...
Paid articleWhat Poetry Is (July 1991)
Writers & Writing WHAT POETRY IS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Oxpord University's venerable Chair of Poetry is one of those peculiarly British institutions that confers a vague aura of prestige and an...
Paid articleFrench Verse Revisited (May 1991)
On Poetry FRENCH VERSE REVISITED BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL When Andre Gide visited the University of Cambridge in 1917, he was introduced to A. E. Housman. With the unconscious bigotry that...
Paid articlePym and Her Poets (May 1991)
Writers & Writing PYM AND HER POETS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Barbara Pym's novels have attracted many loyal readers since they began to appear in the early 1950s. Her bittersweet comedies of...
Paid articleMaking Epic Connections (March 1991)
Writers & Writing MAKING EPIC CONNECTIONS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Suppose that Homer's Muse, after singing about the wrath of Achilles on the plains of Troy and the wanderings of Ithaca's...
Paid articleThe Price Of Pooh (January 1991)
Writers & Writitig THE PRICE OF POOH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Certajn fictional characters become more real than their creators in the public mind, and then weigh like an albatross around the...
Paid articleEmily Bront?'s Prison (December 1990)
On Poetry EMILY BRONT?'S PRISON BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Somebody always seems to be writing another study of the Brontes. In Cold Comfort Farm, her brilliant satire of the rural British novel,...
Paid articleThe First Lady of Modernism (November 1990)
Writers & Writing THE FIRSTLADY OF MODERNISM BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Had the institution of American poet laureate existed in the 1960s, the popular choice in many quarters would have been...
Paid articleAnthony Hecht's Design (October 1990)
Writers & Writing ANTHONY HECHT'S DESIGN BY PHOEBE ??TTI?G?LL Considering the earnest demeanor reviewers of verse tend to adopt, you might think we hoped to convince some hostile citizens'...
Paid articleVictorian Nostalgia (September 1990)
Writers & Writing VICTORIAN NOSTALGIA BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In the midst of looking into the lives of 19th-century notables for his irreverent Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey wrote to...
Paid articleA Testament for the Times (July 1990)
Writers & Writing A TESTAMENT FOR THE TIMES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL POETS and novelists interpreting Scripture? If the idea strikes you as incongruous, this simply proves how far we have moved...
Paid articleColeridge Unbound (May 1990)
On Poetry COLERIDGE UNBOUND BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL WOULD we regard Samuel Taylor Coleridge differently if he had not lived until 1834, but had perished instead three decades earlier on his...
Paid articleC.S. Lewis' Romantic Egoism (March 1990)
Writers & Writing C.S. LEWIS' ROMANTIC EGOISM BY PHOEBE ??TTI?G?LL The publication of A.N. Wilson's C.S. Lewis: A Biography (Norton, 334 pp., $22.50) stirs memories. Like many who were...
Paid articleExiled Poets (February 1990)
Writers & Writing EXILED POETS BY PHOEBE PEHINGELL Now that Communist regimes are melting away like snow in a spring thaw, we may wonder how these changes will affect the budding generation of...
Paid articleThe Prophetic Yeats (January 1990)
Writers & Writing THE PROPHETIC YEATS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL As a young man, William Butler Yeats burned with grandiose ambitions. He would love "the most beautiful woman in the world" and...
Paid articleJudas in Greeneland (October 1989)
Writers & Writing JUDAS IN GREENELAND BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL READERS of Graham Greene immediately recognize that crucial moment common to all his tales when the seedy Judas figure enters to...
Paid articleBritish Eccentrics (September 1989)
Writers & Writing BRITISH ECCENTRICS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The British Isles have always been fertile with eccentrics. Those peculiar bipeds are familiar to us from the pages of Charles...
Paid articlePassing Through Porlock (July 1989)
Writers & Writing PASSING THROUGH PORLOCK BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Coleridge must be the patron saint of literary procrastinators, given how much ingenuity he devoted to coming up with...
Paid articleAmerican Bards (May 1989)
On Poetry AMERICAN BARDS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL When not ignoring poets, Americans treat them alternately with extremes of distrust or reverence. Our native bards have attracted more attention...
Paid articleTales of Eros in Verse (March 1989)
Writers & Writing TALES OF EROS IN VERSE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Verse novels are suddenly back in fashion. How our ancestors loved this peculiarly Victorian genre. Many of you will no doubt...
Paid articleFabulists for Our Time (January 1989)
Writers & Writing FABULISTS FOR OUR TIMES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL James Merrill and John Hollander are among the most prolific, and protean, American poets writing today. Both possess the...
Paid articleEliot's Secret Life (December 1988)
On Poetry ELIOT'S SECRET LIFE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The best known fact about T.S. Eliot is that he treasured his privacy. Except for the Psalms, no poetry has ever been subject ed to the...
Paid articlePoets As Art Critics (November 1988)
Writers & Writing POETS AS ART CRITICS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL WALLACE Stevens, who was an art collector as well as a poet, enjoyed quoting the Goncourt brothers' observation that "nothing in...
Paid articleBrodsky in Two Worlds (October 1988)
Writers & Writing BRODSKY IN TWO WORLDS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Collections of Joseph Brodsky's verse have been coming out here both in his native Russian and in English translation since...
Paid articleMilosz vs. the Rat Rhymers (September 1988)
Writers & Writing MILOSZ VS. THE RAT RHYMERS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Aperennial complaint about modem poetry written in English has been its supposed lack of relevance to life. The late...
Paid articleEdwardian Lives (August 1988)
Writers & Writing EDWARDIAN LIVES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In literary circles the term "Edwardian" conjures up expectations of atart, amusingnovel, a sparkling memoir, or perhaps a volume of...
Paid articleDemocratic Voices (June 1988)
Writers & Writing VOICES OF DEMOCRACY BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL THOMAS JEFFERSON, our pre-eminent American democrat, once wrote that "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if...
Paid articleMerwin's Progress (May 1988)
On Poetry MERWIN'S PROGRESS BY PHOEBE PEHINGELL It is no wonder that poetry concerned with spiritual perceptions tends to be pastoral. When people embody ideas from their inner life, they...
Paid articleFaustus and the Critic (April 1988)
Writers & Writing FAUSTUS AND THE CRITIC BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The legend of Doctor Faustus, who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge and power, has intrigued readers since...
Paid articleThe Immortal Adolescent (March 1988)
Writers & Writing THE IMMORTAL ADOLESCENT BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Even in the 18th century teenage suicide was sadly common. Thus in 1770 a certain London landlady was horrified but not...
Paid articleGrimm Realities (February 1988)
Writers & Writing GRIMM REALITIES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL During the 1950s, when I was growing up, a public debate raged over the effects of fairy tales on the minds of young children. A number...
Paid articleRecapturing the Past (December 1987)
On Poetry RECAPTURING THE PAST BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL SOMETIMES the freshest artistic approach is not to " make it new" but to try and restore what has been lost. The breakthroughs achieved by...
Paid articleTruthtelling Tropes (November 1987)
Writers & Writing TRUTHTELLING TROPES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL JOHN Ashbery inspires more conflicting opinions than any poet of the post-Lowell generation. His detractors complain loudly that it...
Paid articleDillard and Plath Growing Up (November 1987)
Writers & Writing DILLARD AND PLATH GROWING UP BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL AN Nie Dillard's concern as a writer is to recreate experience as we feel it within ourselves—not as conventionally...
Paid articleWords on Words about Words (September 1987)
Writers & Writing WORDS ON WORDS ABOUT WORDS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Since the 1970s literary criticism has been enjoying one of its periodic renaissances. Arguments about feminist and Marxist...
Paid articlePeter Viereck's Ctoss (August 1987)
Writers & Writing PETER VIERECKS CROSS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Two decades ago, Peter Viereck began writing an epic cycle of poems about man's attempts to come to terms with a confusing world...
Paid articleThe Romantics Return (June 1987)
Writers & Writing THE ROMANTICS RETURN BY PHOEBE PEHINGELL EARLY 20th-century poets felt they had inherited an overripe literary tradition. Romanticism had long passed its prime; it seemed to...
Paid articlePeripatetic Poets (May 1987)
On Poetry PERIPATETIC POETS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL W??? spring here, those of us who have no reason to turn our fancy toward love may well find ourselves daydreaming of travel. Memories of...
Paid articleConstantine's Pagan Triumph (April 1987)
Writers & Writing CONSTANTINE'S PAGAN TRIUMPH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Christtantty's rapid triumph over paganism has remained one of history's major puzzles. Scarcely any independent...
Paid articleA Prisoner of Allen Ginsberg (March 1987)
Writers & Writing A PRISONER OF ALLEN GINSBERG BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In 1956, a young college drop-out was catapulted into notoriety when a lengthy poem of his, printed in England for the San...
Paid articleEnigmatic Lives (January 1987)
Writers & Writing ENIGMATIC UVES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL SINCE his death in 1953, Wallace Stevens has remained an enigmatic figure. He does not conform to any of the stereotypes frequently...
Paid articleSmall Worlds (December 1986)
On Poetry SMALL WORLDS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL when Emily Dickinson died in 1886, her relatives began to fabricate a legend to explain why, from the age of 22 onward, she refused to leave the...
Paid articleJane and the Janeites (November 1986)
Writers & Writing JANE AND THE JANEITES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL JANE AUSTEN'S novels dwell on the minutiae of daily life with such fidelity that appreciative readers find the events chronicled as...
Paid articleYoung Yeats (September 1986)
Writers & Writing YOUNG YEATS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL william Butler Yeats was not a stylish letter writer. His Irish contemporaries Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw made their epistles sparkle...
Paid articlePlayful Pastoral Voices (July 1986)
Writers & Writing PLAYFUL PASTORAL VOICES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL HENRI COLE'S The Marble Queen (Atheneum, 64 pp., $15.00) is so polished, we might easily take it to be the latest collection by an...
Paid articleCrying for a New Pope (May 1986)
Writers & Writing CFYNG FOR A NEW POPE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL To Joshua Reynolds, Alexander Pope in middle age looked " about four foot six high; very humpbacked and deformed." The painter was most...
Paid articleHart Crane Revisited (April 1986)
On Poetry HART CRANE REVISITED BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL A few minutes before noon on April 27,1932, Hart Crane appeared on the deck of the Orizaba, 275 miles north of Havana on her way to New York....
Paid articleLiterary Pilgrimages (February 1986)
Writers & Writing LITERARY PILGRIMAGES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Richard Holmes' Shelley: The Pursuit (1975) radically revised the poet's image for contemporary readers. In place of the unworldly...
Paid articleThe Other Wordsworth (January 1986)
Writers & Writing THE OTHER WORDSWORTH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Few in the gallery of literary sisters and brothers are more intriguing, or lately more controversial, than Dorothy and William...
Paid articleSongs of Science (December 1985)
On Poetry SONGS OF SCIENCE BY PHOEBE FETTINGELL History was the controlling trope for 19th-century writers: Novelists, essayists, poets, and playwrights all affirmed their hopes for mankind's...
Paid articleSound and Sense in Poetry (September 1985)
Writers & Writing SOUND AND SENSE IN POETRY BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Amy CLAMPITT's second book of poems, What the Light Was Like (Knopf, 110pp., $8.95), deals preponderantly with loss. In "The...
Paid articleIntimate Dialogues (July 1985)
Writers &Writing INTIMATE DIALOGUES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL william Empson was working on the manuscript of Using Biography (Harvard, 265 pp., $17.95) when he died in 1984 at the age of 78. It comes...
Paid articleLiterary Letters (April 1985)
Writers & Writing LITERARY LETTERS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Although letter writing has become a lost art these days, a number of recent books evoke happier times when people were in the habit of...
Paid articleAlien Voices (April 1985)
Writers & Writing ALIEN VOICES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Dante consoled himself during his political exile from Florence by writing The Divine Comedy. This gave him the satisfaction of imagining his...
Paid articleA Century of Poetic Diversity (March 1985)
Writers & Writing A CENTURY OF POETIC DIVERSITY by PHOEBE PETTINGELL The canon of 18th-century poetry seems firmly established. Most of us know what works are likely to make up any anthology. The...
Paid articleWoolf and Plath Revised (January 1985)
Writers &Writing WOOLF AND PLATH REVISED BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath have been cult figures to a generation of readers. Most of the books written about them in the last...
Paid articleA Beat of Our Time (December 1984)
On Poetry A BEAT OF OUR TIME BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The Beat Generation—which in the words of charter member Allen Ginsberg "hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of...
Paid articleMilton's Victory (November 1984)
Writers & Writing MILTON'S VICTORY BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The ferment of radical ideas during England's mid-nth-century Puritan Revolution inspired a series of actions that astounded Europe. For...
Paid articleEvolving Traditionalists (October 1984)
Writers & Writing EVOLVING TRADITIONALISTS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The cover of Richard Kenney' s The Evolution of the Flightless Bird (Yale, 68 pp., $12.95), winner of the 1983 Yale Series of...
Paid articleVoices For the Voiceless (September 1984)
Writers & Writing VOICES FOR THE VOICELESS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Emerson, that most democratic of Americans, was moved by the symbols of work and aspiration laborers invent for parades and...
Paid articleThrough Memory and Miniatures (August 1984)
Writers & Writing THROUGH MEMORY AND MINIATURES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The title poem of Charles Wright's latest collection, The Other Side of the River (Random House, 74 pp., $11.95), flows easily...
Paid articleMeditations on Stones and Cityscapes (July 1984)
Writers & Writing MEDITATIONS ON STONES AND CITYSCAPES by phoebe pettingell Mavin Bell's by Stones, by Earth, by Things that Have Been in the Fire (Atheneum, 52 pp. ,$11.95), radiates his...
Paid articleReassessing Wilfred Owen (June 1984)
Writers & Writing REASSESSNG WILFRED OWEN BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Having long loved his war verses, I was delighted to learn about Wilfred Owen: The Complete Poems and Fragments (Norton, 560 pp.,...
Paid articleVoyages of Discovery (May 1984)
On Poetry VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Alfred Corn's fourth book of verse, Notes from a Child of Paradise (Viking, 107pp., $14.95), recounts the poet's courtship, marriage and...
Paid articleFrozen and Fluid Images (April 1984)
Writers &Writin'j: FROZEN AND FLUID IMAGES by phoebe pettingell we often speak of a writer "training his lens on a subject" or "developing her picture"—as if cameras, not pens, were the tool. No...
Paid articleVictorian Lust and Love (March 1984)
Writers & Writing VICTORIAN LUST AND LOVE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL By now you have probably heard of Peter Gay's Education of the Senses (Oxford, 534 pp. $25.00)—a study of the 19th-century "...
Paid articleFlamboyant Poets (February 1984)
Writers & Writing FLAMBOANT POETS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Now appearing for the first time in English, Konstan-tin Mochulsky's critical biography, Aleksandr Blok (Wayne, 442 pp., $30.00), was...
Paid articleIn the Spirit of John Keats (January 1984)
Writers & Writing IN THE SPIRIT OF JOHN KEATS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Ask readers to name their favorite poet of all time and, after Shakespeare, most will say Keats. As Helen Vend-ler notes in her...
Paid articleDifferent Revelations (December 1983)
On Poetry DIFFERENT REVELATIONS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The lives of Modernist poets are rapidly becoming as well known as their poems. Indeed, better known, because readers who have scarcely...
Paid articleSpeaking Through Other Voices (November 1983)
Writers & Writing SPEAKING THROUGH OTHER VOICES BY PHOEBE PETTNGELL Have you ever tried to look at a winter landscape through the eyes of the Flemish Renaissance painter, Breughel? Or imagined...
Paid articlePoetry As Performance (October 1983)
POETRY AS PERFORMANCE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Many poetry lovers heard verse aloud long before they began reading it. My own passionate interest owes much to my father's dramatic bedtime renditions...
Paid articlePioneer of the Literary Subconscious (October 1983)
Writers & Writing PIONEER OF THE LITERARY SUBCONSCDUS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The young man and the somewhat older companion whom he registered as his wife had seemed particularly happy as they...
Paid articlePoets of the Left (September 1983)
Writers & Writing POETS OF THE LEFT BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL THE LIVES and verse of two almost-forgotten modern poets, John Wheelwright (1897-1940) and Sherry Mangan (1904-1961), are analyzed by Alan...
Paid articleColoring Emotions (July 1983)
Writers &Writing COLORING EMOTIONS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL appearing after a hiatus of 12 years, Riding to Greylock (Knopf, 115 pp, $11 95) is Stephen Sandy's third collection of poems It possesses...
Paid articleMilosz' Defense of Poetry (June 1983)
Writers & Writing MILOSZ' DEFENSE OF POETRY BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Many readers these days readily admit that they do not enjoy most contemporary poetry, such writing, apparently, appeals largely...
Paid articleIntellectual Delights (May 1983)
On Poetry INTELLECTUAL DELIGHTS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL John Hollander's Powers of Thirteen (Atheneum, 103 pp , $13 95) is a sequence of 169 poems (13 x 13) of 13 lines each, followed by five pages...
Paid articleForms of Strangeness (May 1983)
Writers & Writing FORMS OF STRANGENESS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL When I was in high school, "poetry" meant Robert Browning Once a year, our class would take a vacation from fiction and plays to tackle...
Paid articleFreudian and Pastoral (March 1983)
Writers & Writing FREUDIAN AND PASTORAL BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Rainer Maria Rilke never deliberately drew upon the events of his autobiography as material for his poems. He believed that the...
Paid articleMerrill's Ascent (February 1983)
Writers & Writing MERRILL'S ASCENT BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In "Clearing the Title," the poem that serves as a postscript to his latest volume of shorter pieces, James Merrill describes his...
Paid articlePoets of Ritual (December 1982)
Writers & Writing POETS OF RITUAL by phoebe pettingell As I write, our northern woods echo with the reports of rifles as men (and a few women) track through the fallen leaves in their annual...
Paid articleMad, Bad and Dangerous (December 1982)
On Poetry MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS by phoebe pettingell The myth of the bard who is mad, bad and dangerous to know fascinates readers. Often poets fall under its malign spell, too, and feel they...
Paid articleSeeing Ruskin Whole (November 1982)
Writers & Writing SEEING RUSKIN WHOLE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL "It is the worst of the minor incapacities of human life," wrote John Ruskin, "that one's opinions ought, by rights, to be tested and...
Paid articleLives by the Poets (October 1982)
Writers & writings LIVES BY THE POETS by phoebe pettingell The he poet W.S. Merwin has now given us a memoir of his childhood, Unframed Originals (Atheneum, 236 pp., $14.95). He never embroiders...
Paid articleSane and Sacred Death (September 1982)
Writers & Writing SANE AND SACRED DEATH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL "For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you, O sane and sacred death," wrote Walt Whitman in 1865. Since then many...
Paid articleThe Craft of Will (August 1982)
Writers &Writing THE CRAFT OF WILL BY PHOEBE PETTINGEL SIR THOMAS BROWNE, that ingenious theoretician, decided that "What songs the sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself...
Paid articleGirlish Muses (June 1982)
On Poetry GIRLISH MUSES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL p ?ushkdm is more alive to Russians than Shakespeare or Wordsworth is to us," D.M. Thomas observes in the Introduction to his translation of The...
Paid articlePoets in the Flesh (May 1982)
Writers & Writing POETS IN THE FLESH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL WRITING HER Master's dissertation in psychology on "Poets' Responses to the Rorschach Test" intheearly 1950s, Eileen Simpson concluded...
Paid articleThe Voices of Sylvia Plath (May 1982)
On Poetry THE VOCES OF SYLVIA PLATH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL OUTLINING A NOVEL she never finished about a young American woman living in England in the mid-1950s, Sylvia Plath wrote a note to...
Paid articleReconciling Disparate Worlds (May 1982)
On Poetry RECONCILING DISPARATE WORLDS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL THE TITLE POEM of Derek Walcott's The Fortunate Traveler (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 99 pp., $ 11.95) reads like a miniature Graham...
Paid articleA Helen from Bethlehem (April 1982)
On Poetry A HELEN FROM BETHLEHEM BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL THERE ARE SO many vignettes of symbolic significance in Janice S. Robinson's enlightening H.D.: The Life and Work of an American Poet...
Paid articleTaking Chances in Verse (March 1982)
On Poetry TAKING CHANCES IN VERSE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL IN Genesis, God-the Father of artists-creates the world and everything in it by speaking Our culture has long since ceased to accept this...
Paid articleEmerson's True Self Revealed (December 1981)
Writers & Writing EMERSON'S TRUE SELF REVEALED BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL ay Wilson Allen's Waldo Emerson (Viking, 751 pp., $25.00) is the first major examination of the great Yankee democrat of the...
Paid articleFathers and Children (December 1981)
On Poetry FATHERS AND CHILDREN BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Dave Smith has published two collections of poetry in the last several months. Despite his versatility and preoccupation with many themes,...
Paid articleA New Look at the Old Testament (November 1981)
ANEW LOOK AT THE OLD TESTAMENT BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Although the Bible is still a best-seller, the Old Testament has become less and less accessible to general readers. Since the last century...
Paid articleOuter and Inner Landscapes (June 1981)
Writers & Writing OUTER AND INNER LANDSCAPES BY PHOEBE PETINGELL fcT ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it!" the old song goes, and recognizing this is critical to understanding...
Paid articleAmerica in "Metres" (June 1981)
Writers & Writing AMERICA IN 'METRES' BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL u nth the American renaissance of the mid-19th century, our writers looked primarily to English literature for their models. Ralph Waldo...
Paid articleA Polish Laureate (May 1981)
On Poetry A POLISH LAUREATE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL czeslaw Milosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature, has experienced firsthand the turmoils that have shaken 20-century European...
Paid articlePoets of Commitment (May 1981)
Waiters&Writint POETS OF COMMENT BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL THE POEMS of Ernesto Cardenal collected in Zero Hour (New Directions, 106 pp , $12 00) will interest many readers in the United States less...
Paid articleExile and Cunning (April 1981)
Writers &Writing EXILE AND CUNNING BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL P JL. ete . eter Ackroyd's new biography, Ezra Pound and His World (Scnbners, 116pp , $12 95), raises once more the issue of why this...
Paid articleModernism and After (March 1981)
Writers &Writing MDDERNISM AND AFTER BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL seems only yesterday that Ezra Pound and T S Eliot were avant-garde iconoclasts, James Joyce's Ulysses was considered both obscene and...
Paid articlePoets' Notebooks (January 1981)
\\ftitere&y\friting POETS' NOTEBOOKS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELi JL. he task of a poet is the search for a timely truth, not a general truth," Eugenio Montale announced in an interview ("Intentions,"...
Paid articleBracing Ridicule (December 1980)
On Poetry BRACING RIDICULE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL C atire seems to have originated out of primitive rite. At ancient Greek festivals, the leaders of Phallic songs heaped abuse on the bystanders...
Paid articleLives of Two Poets (December 1980)
Writers &Writing LIVES OF TWOFOETS by phoebe pettingell "W. e poets, in our youth, begin in gladness; / But thereof come in the end despondency and madness," wrote Wordsworth, pessimistically,...
Paid articleSharpened Visions (November 1980)
Writers & Writing SHARPENED VISDNS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Alfred Corn's first book of poems, All Roads at Once (1976), left the impression that he possessed almost limitless resources. A poetic...
Paid articleGod and JM (October 1980)
Writers & Writing GOD ANDJM BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Even the greatest poets failed in their efforts to portray the God of Judeo-Christian tradition in sympathetic or dramatically convincing terms....
Paid articlePoetry as Criticism (July 1980)
Writers & Writing POETRY AS CRITICISM BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In The Everlastings (Doubleday, 78 pp., $6.95), the prolific Norman Dubie continues to meditate on the meaning of history and the art of...
Paid articleThe Girl in the Library (June 1980)
On Poetry THEGRL NTHE LBRARY by phoebe pettingell JL JLelen Vendler is an outstanding interpreter of modern poetry. In Part ofNature, Part of Us (Harvard, 372 pp., $15.00), she has selected 35...
Paid articleAmbassador of the Fragmented (May 1980)
On Poetry AMBASSADOR OF THE FRAGMENTED BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Ever since the children of Israel sat down and wept beside the waters of Babylon, exiled poets have wrestled with the problem of...
Paid articleChallenging the Gospels' Truth (March 1980)
Writers & Writing CHALLENGING THE GOSPELS' TRUTH BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL VIRTUALLY ALL religions experience a tension between organized and mystical practice The first embraces the community of...
Paid articleA Prey to Madness (February 1980)
Writers & Writing A PREY TO MADNESS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL What nightmare inspired a quiet teenage mother to create Frankenstein1 Was it necessary for the Bronte sisters and Mary Ann Evans to...
Paid articleSpirits of Place (January 1980)
\\riters&V\friting SPIRITS OF PLACE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL JLm. ' rom the shape of men's lives imparted by the place where they have experience, good writing springs," declared William Carlos...
Paid articleAnthony Hecht's Transmutations (December 1979)
On Poetry ANTHONY HECHT'S TRANSMUTATIONS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The Venetian Vespers (Atheneum, 91 pp., $10.00), Anthony Hecht ruminates on the truism that from the air the world looks like a model...
Paid articleMidlife Journeys (November 1979)
On Poetry MIDLIFE JOURNEYS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL "Iin mid-journey through life," wrote the Florentine poet, "I discovered myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost." Before Dante...
Paid articleA Diplomatic Poet (September 1979)
Writers & Writing A DIPLOMATIC POET BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL POETS MAY BE "the unacknowledged legislators of the world," but few have been among its statesmen as well An exception is Alexis St...
Paid articleThe Politics of Philip Levine (August 1979)
Writers & Writing THE POLITICS OF PHILIP LEVINE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The title of Philip Levine's new collection, 7 Years from Somewhere, (Atheneum, 70 pp , $4 95) refers to an encounter with...
Paid articleThe Face of Christina Rossetti (May 1979)
On Poetry THE FACE OF ChflSTNA ROSSETTI BV PHOEBE PETTINGELL ^•wn their portraits, Victorian poets always seem to look like overstuffed furniture—monuments to the bourgeois prosperity of their...
Paid articleLowell's Aeschylus (May 1979)
Writers &Writing LOWELL'S AESCHYLUS BY PHOEBE PETTINGEL he poet of today cannot write in such a mood of exultation as seemed to have possessed Athenians of the time of Aeschylus," noted Maud...
Paid articlePoets by Vocation (April 1979)
Writers &Writing POETS BY VOCATION by phoebe pettingell Religious poets often suffer at the hands of their critics. Readers who willingly suspend disbelief when confronted with an artist's...
Paid articleGifts Reserved for Age (February 1979)
Writers & Writing GIFTS RESERVED FORAGE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL "WHY SHOULD not old men be mad?" demanded W B Yeats in his 74th year For having outlasted his generation, he claimed to have learned...
Paid articleVoices from the Atom (December 1978)
On Poetry VOICES FROM THE ATOM BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL "P JL oems of Science? Ugh./The very thought. To squint through those steel-rimmed/Glasses of the congeni-tally slugVPale boy at school, with...
Paid articleThe Two George Herberts (November 1978)
Writers &Writing; THE TWO GEORGE HERBERTS by phoebe pettingell Q ? What is the critical view of George Herbert' A. As recently as a decade ago, most critics felt compelled to apologize for...
Paid articleThe Cult of Parody (August 1978)
Writers & Writing THE CULT OF PARODY BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL "The cult of parody, in fact, belongs to that literary culture which, in its obtuse and smug complacency, is always the worst enemy of...
Paid articleClimbing Parnassus (May 1978)
On Poetry CLIMBING PARNASSUS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Daryl Hine and Mark Strand are both Canadian-born poets recently embarked upon what Dante called "the middle of the journey of our life," and are...
Paid articleBeacons in the Dark (April 1978)
Writers & Writing BEACONS IN THE DARK BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL "Cities," wrote George Santayana, "are a second body for the human mind ... a work of natural yet moral art, where the soul sets up...
Paid articleThe People's Poet (February 1978)
On Poetry THE PEOPLE'S POET BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL JL^F orn 100 years ago, Carl Sandburg was at his death in 1967 one of America's most celebrated and honored authors The pundits of the poetry...
Paid articleSermons in Stones (January 1978)
On Poetry SERMONS IN STONES by phoebe pettingell When the Lord spoke to Elijah out of Mount Horeb, the sound came not from the whirlwind, or the earthquake, or the fire; after these had passed,...
Paid articleIrony, Tragedy and Violence (December 1977)
On Poetry IRONY TRAGEDY AND VIOLENCE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In his Collected Poems (Chicago, 516 pp., $20.00), Howard Nemerov beautifully justifies Allen Tate's dictum that all of a poet's books...
Paid articleUlysses and Orpheus (November 1977)
Writers & Writing ULYSSES AND ORPHEUS BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The untimely death of Robert Lowell on September 12 alters our perspective on his final book, Day by Day (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 139...
Paid articleWomen Beware Women (September 1977)
Writers & Writing WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Women have an ancient and distinguished history as poets, traditionally dating back to Sappho in the 7th century b c The few of the...
Paid articleThe Wildness of Graves (June 1977)
On Poetry THE WILDNESS OF GRAVES BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL The function of poetry is the religious invocation of the Muse"—or so Robert Graves insists in that quirky manual of poetics, The White...
Paid articleRobinson Jeffers Revisited (May 1977)
On Poetry ROBINSON JEFFERS REVISITED BY PHOEBE PETTINGEU Robinson Jeffers is not exactly a forgotten poet. Those misanthropic anthology pieces?Shine, Perishing Republic," "Apology for Bad...
Paid articleAmbiguities of Innocence (March 1977)
Ambiguities of Innocence Lewis Carroll and His World By John Pudney Scribners. 128 pp. $8.95. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell On July 4, 1862, a young mathematics don at Oxford, the Reverend...
Paid articleNew Songs to the Lord (January 1977)
On Poetry NEW SONGS TO THE LORD BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL In its palmiest days, secular poetry must still resign itself to a limited following: Now, as before, one has to be a guest at the banquet to...
Paid articleAuden's Gargantuan Talent (December 1976)
On Poetry AUDEN'S GARGANTUAN TALENT BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL There was a punitive study hall in my high school, aptly called "Purgatory," where I served countless dismal hours. In the depths of...
Paid articleRobert Lowell and the Muse of History (October 1976)
On Poetry ROBERT LOWELL AND THE MUSE OF HISTORY BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL Ralph Waldo Emerson, prophet of the American Dream, preached that "The student is to read history actively and not passively;...
Paid articleBloom's Romantic Humanism (August 1976)
Writers & Writing BLOOM'S ROMANTIC HUMANISM BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL ROMANTICISM, Harold Bloom assures us, is "a humanism which seeks our renewal as makers, which hopes to give us the immodest hope...
Paid articleOn Poetry (May 1976)
On Poetry THE COMIC STANCE BY PHOEBE PETTINGELL There is much to admire in the poetry of Stevie Smith: her startling clarity of judgment, her sharp unsentimental vision, her unmistakable voice...
Paid articleComplexity Reduced to a Complex (March 1976)
Complexity Reduced to a Complex Melville By Edwin Haviland Miller Venture/Braziller. 382 pp. $15.00. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell Although Edward Haviland Miller's Melville is labeled a...
Paid articleThe Dark Side of a Romantic (January 1976)
The Dark Side of a Romantic Shelley: The Pursuit By Richard Holmes Dutton. 829 pp. $22.50 Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell There have always been two Shelleys. The first is "Ariel," Matthew...
Paid articleThe Original Ugly Duckling (December 1975)
The Original UglyDuckling Hans Christian Andersen By Elias Bredsdorff Scribners. 376 pp. $10.00. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell Who is the most famous Scandinavian writer? Not Ibsen, not...
Paid articleStruggling to Achieve Harmony (May 1975)
Struggling to Achieve Harmony George Eliot: The Emergent Self By Ruby V Redinger Knopf. 430 pp. $15.00. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell "Woman," wrote Victorian journalist and physiologist George...
Paid articleThe First Feminist (March 1973)
The First Feminist Mary Wollstonecraft By Eleanor Flexner Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. 307 pp. $8.95. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell "How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent,...
Paid articleOld Realities and New Myths (February 1973)
Old Realities and New Myths Time of Need: Forms of Imagination in the Twentieth Century By William Barrett Harper & Row. 401 pp. $10.00. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell William Barrett, best...
Paid articleGeorge and Caroline and Percy and Mary (December 1972)
George and Caroline and Percy and Mary Caro: The Fatal Passion By Henry Blyth Coward McCann & Geoghegan. 260 pp. $8.95. Haunted Summer By Anne Edwards Coward McCann & Geoghegan. 278 pp....
Paid articlePoet of the Moors (July 1972)
Poet of the Moors Emily Bronte By Winifred Gerin Oxford. 290 pp. $9.95 Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell "My sister Emily," wrote Charlotte Bronte in posthumous reminiscence, "was not a person of...
Paid articleThe Unbeautiful Bellini (June 1972)
The Unbeautiful Bellini Vincenzo Bellini: His Life and His Operas By Herbert Weinstock Knopf. 554 pp. $15.00. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell "There was something vague, an absence of character...
Paid articleThe Art of Naming (May 1972)
The Art of Naming Reflexions on Poetry & Poetics By Howard Nemeroy Rutgers 233 pp $10 00 Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell A poet-critic writing about poetry may move in either of two directions...
Paid articleA Developed Heart (December 1971)
A Developed Heart Maurice By E M Forster Not ton 256 pp $6 95 Reviewed by Phoebe Petting ell The late E M Forster attributed the singular reserve of the English character to the public-school...
Paid articleScholarly and Strident Romanticism (October 1971)
Scholarly and Strident Romanticism Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution m Romantic Literature By M H Abrams Norton 550 pp $10 00 The Ringers in the Tower: Studies in Romantic...
Paid articleMisanthropic Nostalgia (July 1971)
Misanthropic Nostalgia A Rage for Opera: Its Anatomy as Drawn from Life By Robert Lawrence Dodd, Mead. 176 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell GRAND OPERA, like the novel, has fallen on...
Paid articleThe Art of Dying (June 1971)
The Art of Dying The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath Harper & Row. 296 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell THERE IS a moment in The Bell Jar when Sylvia Plath's heroine, Esther Greenwood, is...
Paid articleWalker Percy's Sci-Fi Detour (May 1971)
Walker Percy's Sci-Fi Detour_ Love in the Ruins By Walker Percy Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 403 pp. $7.95. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell THERE IS a discouraging trend in recent American...
Paid articleParadoxical Procrastinator (April 1971)
Paradoxical Procrastinator The Watchman By Samuel Taylor Coleridge Edited by Lewis Patton Princeton. 477 pp. $12.50. The Friend By Samuel Taylor Coleridge Edited by Barbara E....
Paid articleMary Quite Contrary (June 1970)
Mary Quite Contrary Mary Queen of Scots By Antonia Fraser Delacorte. 613 pp. $10.00. The First Trial of Mary Queen of Scots By Gordon Donaldson Stein & Day. 254 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Phoebe...
Paid articlePerpetual Sucker (May 1970)
Perpetual Sucker Vital Parts By Thomas Berger Richard W. Baron Books. 432 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell Thomas Berger has just brought out this third volume of his Rein-hart trilogy...
Paid articleRuskin's Roses and Lilies (April 1970)
Ruskin's Roses and Lilies The Winnington Letters By John Ruskm Edited by Van Akin Burd Harvard University 739 pp $20 00 Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell In 1859 John Ruskin paid a visit to a...
Paid articleThe Proof of the Prudent (March 1970)
The Proof of the Prudent THE CRUCIBLE OF CHRISTIANITY: JUDAISM, HELLENISM AND THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH Edited by Arnold Toynbee World 368 pp $29 50 Reviewed by PHOEBE...
Paid articleRoyal Dancing Bears (January 1970)
Royal Dancing Bears THE TRAGIC DYNASTY: A HISTORY OF THE ROMANOVS By John Bergamini. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 512 pp. $10.00. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTTNGELL There comes a time in adolescence when...
Paid articleBerlizo: The Artist Unreconciled (December 1969)
Berlioz: The Artist Unreconciled MEMOIRS OF HECTOR BERLIOZ Translated by David Cairns Knopf. 636 pp. $12.50. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL "Suddenly, in the middle of the introduction to...
Paid articleDisorder and Early Sorrow (May 1969)
Disorder and Early Sorrow TIKE AND FIVE STORIES By Jonathan Strong Atlantic-Little Brown. 210 pp. $5.75. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL "When i was twelve I felt things would be all right when...
Paid articleThe Tangled Webs (March 1969)
The Tangled Webs BRUNO'S DREAM By Iris Murdoch Viking. 311 pp. $5.75. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL Iris Murdoch's twelfth novel is entirely about love, often in peculiar aspects, as we have...
Paid articleMemorable Scene (January 1969)
Memorable Scene CHARLES I By Christopher Hibbert Harper and Row. 295 pp. $11.95. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL "He nothing common did or mean/upon that memorable scene" wrote republican Andrew...
Paid articleTime to Cleanse Ihe Temple (December 1968)
Time to Cleanse the Temple THE TRIAL OF JESUS OF NAZARETH By S. F. G. Brandon Stein & Day. 223 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. John...
Paid articleDancing Before the Ark (October 1968)
Dancing Before the Ark GEORGE HERBERT'S LYRICS By Arnold Stein Johns Hopkins. 221 pp. $6.50. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL In the early decades of the 17th century, under a king famous for...
Paid articleThis Boor Joyce (September 1968)
This Boor Joyce ENDERBY By Anthony Burgess W. W. Norton. 412 pp. $5.95. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL Enderby is Anthony Burgess' 17th novel, and his second to deal with writers. The first,...
Paid articleLiving the Role (April 1968)
Living the Role CHALIAPIN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS TOLD TO MAXIM GORKY Translated and edited by Nina Froud and James Hanley Stein and Day. 320 pp. $10.00, Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL "F....
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