Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
John Berryman: A Critical Commentary

John Berryman: A Critical Commentary

Haffenden, John

Hardcover

Series: Critical Commentary

Poetry CriticismGeneral Poetry

ISBN10: 0333276183
ISBN13: 9780333276181
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: May 14 1980
Pages: 216
Weight: 0.97
Height: 0.69 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
The poetry of John Berryman occupies an incomparable place in modern American literature. This study traces the composition of the major poems, and interprets Berryman's characteristic trials and his imaginative triumphs. In Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, which Edmund Wilson called ' the most distinguished long poem by an American since The Waste Land ', Berryman set himself enormous problems of theme and form, and overcame them with the vigorous and exciting craft that is described in this book. He transformed his personal concerns and historical interests into a fully achieved artistic unity, a poem which succeeds both as lyric and as drama. Similarly, in forging the thirteen-year 'epic' of The Dream Songs, 'the tragical history of Henry', as the poet himself called it, Berryman resolutely confronted chosen models such as Don Quixote and The Iliad, and eventually realised his own design and a unique poetic voice. 'I set up the 'Bradstreet' poem as an attack on 'The WasteLand' ' Berryman said in his National Book Award Acceptance Speech; 'I set up ' The Dream Songs ' as hostile to every visible tendency in both American and English poetry...The aim was the same in both poems: the reproduction or invention of the motions of a human personality, free and determined, in one case feminine, in the other masculine.' A chief feature of this study is the remarkably extensive use John Haffenden has made of primary research materials - manuscript drafts, notes, marginalia, diary entries and letters, all of which are printed here for the first time - to illuminate and explain the poems. This book is both a critical analysis of Berryman's mature works and an internal narrative of the poet's struggles and success. It includes comprehensive notes and commentary on 'The Dream Songs' and on 'Delusions, Etc.', as well as an authoritative discussion and assesment of 'Love & Fame'.

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