A rich smattering of essays on American poets from one of this
country's most important critics. Topics in this latest collection
by Bromwich ("Disowned by Memory", 1998, etc.) range from studied
close readings of great and lesser-known works by Stevens, Moore,
Ashbery, and other well-known figures to provocative discussions of
the aesthetics of modern poetry and the morality of taste. The
essays themselves date from the mid-1970s to the present, and it's
interesting to chart the author's critical tack across that
period-especially as he self-consciously checks his maleness at the
door when interpreting the work of Bishop and Moore in 1990.
Bromwich is a master of drawing lines between artists (seen here
most clearly in his essay on Crane and Eliot) and amplifying poetic
resonances: of seminal interest to Stevens scholars is his
exploration of the shift in Stevens's pragmatism from Nietzsche to
William James. For students of modernism, the author's smart claim
that the most compelling aspect of modernist aesthetics arises from
what he terms a "rhetoric of understatement" should open countless
doors for further poetic inquiry. But of most general appeal in
this eclectic mix of refined literary thought are the author's
notions of the function of the critic. In various spots, he argues
that a good critic "need never do more than point," and point
Bromwich does, with remarkable precision and lucidity. His
sentences are lithe and supple, although one wishes he'd
occasionally remove his gloves and let the passion driving his
scholarship through; even the recounting of an incident involving
his son (an experience that in part fuels the charged question of
how moral is taste) is handled with uncanny reserve. It seems that
Bromwich's prose at times succumbs to the lure of understatement he
so rightly identifies in his subjects. Overall, a vital
contribution to modern poetics. (Kirkus Reviews)
"Skeptical Music" collects the essays on poetry that have made
David Bromwich one of the most widely admired critics now writing.
Both readers familiar with modern poetry and newcomers to poets
like Marianne Moore and Hart Crane will relish this collection for
its elegance and power of discernment. Each essay stakes a
definitive claim for the modernist style and its intent to capture
an audience beyond the present moment.
The two general essays that frame "Skeptical Music" make Bromwich's
aesthetic commitments clear. In "An Art without Importance,"
published here for the first time, Bromwich underscores the trust
between author and reader that gives language its subtlety and
depth, and makes the written word adequate to the reality that
poetry captures. For Bromwich, understanding the work of a poet is
like getting to know a person; it is a kind of reading that
involves a mutual attraction of temperaments. The controversial
final essay, "How Moral Is Taste?," explores the points at which
aesthetic and moral considerations uneasily converge. In this
timely essay, Bromwich argues that the wish for excitement that
poetry draws upon is at once primitive and irreducible.
"Skeptical Music" most notably offers incomparable readings of
individual poets. An essay on the complex relationship between Hart
Crane and T. S. Eliot shows how the delicate shifts of tone and
shading in their work register both affinity and resistance. A
revealing look at W. H. Auden traces the process by which the voice
of a generation changed from prophet to domestic ironist. Whether
discussing heroism in the poetry of Wallace Stevens, considering
self-reflection in the poems of Elizabeth Bishop, or exploring the
battle between the self and its images in the work of John Ashbery,
"Skeptical Music" will make readers think again about what poetry
is, and even more important, why it still matters.
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