Forms of lyric; selected papers from the English Institute. 9780231034135, 023103413X

Table of contents :
Drab and golden lyrics of the Renaissance / by G.K Hunter --
The re-invented poem : George Herbert's alternatives / by H. Vendler --
Imitation as freedom / by W.K. Wimsatt --
Wordsworth's whelming tide: Coleridge and the art of analogy / by A.R. Parker --
The inevitable ear / by D. Wesling --
Wildness of logic in modern lyric / by W.H. Pritchard --
Lyric and modernity / by P. de Man.

Citation preview

FORMS

OF

LYRIC

Forms of Lyric �

SELECTED ENGLISH

EDITED

�

BY

PAPERS

FROM

THE

INSTITUTE

WITH

REUBEN

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

A

A.

PRESS

FOREvVORD BROWER

•

NEW YORK AND LONDON

COPYRIGHT ISBN:

@ 1970

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

0-2J1-034 I 3-X

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

78-121567

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the follo-wing for per­ mission to quote from copyrighted material: Faber and Faber, for permission to quote extracts from Theodore Roethke's "1\1editation at Oyster River" and "The Far Field," from The Far Field. Doubleday & Company, for permission to quote ex­ tracts from Theodore Roethke's "Meditation at Oyster River" (copyright © 1 960 by Beatrice Roethke, Administratrix of the Estate of Theodore Roethke) and an extract from Theodore Roethke's "The Far Field" (copyright © 1 962 by Beatrice Roethke, Administratrix of the Estate of Theodore Roethke, both from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roetbke; re­ printed by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc. Charles Tomlinson, Oxford University Press, and Ivan Obolensky, Inc., for permissin to quote Mr. Tomlinson's "The Atlantic," from Seeing ls Believing. The Johns Hopkins Press, for permission to reprint the article "The Inevitable Ear: Freedom and Necessity in Lyric Form, Wordsworth and After," by Donald \Vesling, which originally appeared in ELH, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3 ( 1969), pp. 544-6 1 (© The Johns Hopkins Press). Charles Scribner's Sons, for permission to quote Howard 1\-loss's "The Pruned Tree" (copyright © 196 3 Howard 1\11oss), which first appeared in The New Yorker and is reprinted with permission of Charles Scribner's Sons from Finding Them Lost, by Howard i\loss. vVesleyan University Press, for permission to quote extracts from James 'Vright's "A Blessing" (copyright © 1 96 1 by James Wright), from The Branch JVill Not Break, by James vVright

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

(Wesleyan University Press, i\1iddletown, Conn ., 196 3). Holt, Rinehart and Winston, for p ermission to quote Robert Frost's "Never Again vVould Birds' Song Be the Same," "The Lost Follower,'' and an extract from "I Could Give All to Time," from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem ; copyright 1 942 by Robert Frost; copyright© 1970 by Lesley Frost Ballantine; reprinted by permission of Holt, Rine­ hart and Winston, Inc. Eyre & Spottiswoode, Ltd., for per­ mission to quote an extract from Randall Jarrell's ''Next Day." The M acmillan Company, for permission to quote an extract from Randall Janell's "Next Day," published in The Lost World; reprinte d with permission of The Macmillan Company ; copyright © by Randall Jarre11, 1 96 3; this poem originally ap­ peared in The New Yorker. Atheneum Publishers, Inc., for per­ mission to quote Randall Jarrell's "Aging," from Woman at the Washington Zoo, by Randall Jarrell ; copyright 1954© 1960 by Randall Jarrell ; reprinted by permission of Atheneum Pub­ lishers; this poem originally appeared in Poetry . City Lights Books, for permission to quote an extract from Allen Ginsberg's "Poem Rocket," from Kaddish and Other Poems, copyright © 1 96 1 by Allen Ginsberg; reprinted by permission of City Lights Books. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., for permission to quote an extract from Robert Ely's "Sleet Storm on the Merritt Park­

way," from The Light Around the Body, by Robert Bly; copy­ right© 1 962 by Robert Bly; by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., for permission to quote Robert Lowell's "Skunk Hour," reprinted with the per­ mission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., from Life Studies by Robert Lowell, copyright© 1958 by Robert Lowell.

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FOREWORD

The essays that follow were presented (with one exception) at two conferences of the English Institute: the first, in r 968, on "Freedom and Necessity in the Lyric Form," directed by Pro­ fessor Robert Langbaum; the second, in 1 969, on "Forms of the Lyric," directed by the editor. It may be noted that in the transition from conference to publication, the article has dis­ appeared from the title chosen for this volume, the loss reflect­ ing an uneasiness shared by the editor and his colleagues. If "forms" comes trailing clouds of Platonism, "the" Lyric seems to suggest a Form indeed. Even in the plural, form is a trouble­ some term for a generation of critics who have rejected the traditional dichotomy of "form and content." But though most of us can get along quite happily without the second of the two terms, we can hardly talk for long about a poem and not use the first or one of its current equivalents-structure, pat­ tern, design, order. While some of these more fashionable terms have the advantage of not being associated with "content," they are subject to the same abuses as other critical terms. \Ve may not murder to dissect, but if we carry on any discourse about works of literature, we must direct attention to certain items abstracted from the whole. Whatever word we use to indicate that we are attending to "this in relation to this'' and not "that in relation to that," there is always the possibility that we may freeze the life of the poem into lifeless formula. The authors of these studies, it will be readily seen, have not succumbed to this temptation, while exercising complete free-

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FOREWORD