"For the sake of contraption (like Frost) and of character (like
Robinson), John Burt will do a great deal, and his scope and
scansion require a great deal, for his theme is nothing less than
the reinvention of heroism (King Mark, Mary of Nazareth, St.
Francis, Paolo and Francesca, Ariadne) and the invention of a new
heroics (Woodrow Wilson, Willard Gibbs). As attentive to ekphrasis
as to the sonnet's narrow room, Burt feels what he knows, and he
knows that we can learn from the past only by repeating it. A grand
achievement!"--Richard Howard. Almost all these poems are
narrative, telling stories that turn on some small but crucial
shift of sensibility. One hears in them a speaking rather than a
singing voice, a voice which, for all its formality and gravity,
remains oral and sociable, a voice which tells things rather than
spins charms. Their predominant mood is lucid asperity, sometimes
breaking out into the angry Calvinism they always barely keep down,
sometimes striving to achieve a humane skepticism that always just
eludes them. The book consists of two sections, one concerned with
the cruxes and contradictions of private feeling, the other with
the unraveling of the public world. Each section centers on a long
narrative poem that culminates the building tensions of the poems
that precede it and makes possible the resolutions that follow
them. Sonnet I from "St. Francis and the Wolf" Saved at last, not
at the last of me, I knelt two-legged, made of guttural air A
little yelp to sound like human prayer. The saints were cautious,
understandably. I took the cup, and managed not to drool, But
dreamed the wine was blood, as I'd been taught, And vainly curbed
the vain bent of my thought. I knew myself an angel, felt a fool.
Could God have erred in making teeth and maw? Then for his glory I
will bite the lamb Whose terror he transmogrifies to awe That I may
do his service as I am, Till as I am I leap the mortal gulf To rage
in heaven, a perfected wolf. Originally published in 1988. The
Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology
to again make available previously out-of-print books from the
distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These
editions preserve the original texts of these important books while
presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The
goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access
to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books
published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
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