ON THE SHELF

The Harvard Advocate's Christmas present this year is an issue devoted to the poetry of Wallace Stevens, but not just to the poetry mind you, but to a pot-pourri of criticism that seems to say, "There. You're a damn fool if you don't like it."

There is really no reason why you shouldn't like this copy of the magazine, as a matter of fact, even if there weren't so much writing to prove you should. What poems there are, are excellent. They seem to have been chosen more from the occasional reader's point of view than from that of the dilettante or connoisseur, which is really to the Advocate's credit.

The first three poems, representing his recent work, are, of course, the better ones, but the reader new to Stevens should read the earlier poems first, in order to understand Stevens' thorough background in traditional metrical forms. Stevens' handling of the strait-laced sonnet form alone shows his power. Another thing to watch is his neat handling of dialogue in verse. He does this in Outside the Hospital. Then, after seeing the metrical artist at work, look at the holy handling of subject matter in The Beggar.

From a literary point of view, the first three poems in the magazine must be respected. Incidentally, they should be read aloud. All three handle involved metaphysical subjects, and all three handle them clearly. Clearly, that is, in the sense that if such matters can be treated clearly they are treated clearly here. One reads and understands them without being able to outline a logical or geometrical proposition concerning their subjects.

The first attempts a description of the separated inseparable, of happiness out of its context and synthesized in an isolated form in the same manner as existence in a moment might be isolated from the stream of day by day. The second, in spite of its title is not about a person, but about a person, two people, as they represent an idea: the struggle of the imaginary and the real. This is dealt with at length by John Finch in the same magazine--his second paragraph to be exact. Finally, the third poem deals with reflections and meditations on the impossible possible, in that it imagines the existence of a perfect philosophier poet and how imperfect he would be.

The ideas seem oblique, but they seem oblique here because an attempt has been made to translate them into prose, which should not have been done in the first place. If the reader should be bogged down by the poems, but is willing to accept their challenge, he has a wealth of critical material from which to get help.

This brings us to the rest of the magazine which seems to convey so well the modern dilemma of masses of critical work as opposed to a few scraps of creative writing. But seriously, there is a mass of critical material here, some good and the other unnecessary. It is true, however, that the material does satisfy different appetities. First of all any one who wants to be inspired short and, though redundant in part, Statements about Stevens. They are short and though redundant in part, sum up fairly well.

The best article to read before reading the poems is Theodore Spencer's Evaluations. This is easy reading and gets the point across. Schwartz provides more substantial stuff and is quite thorough, stimulating many ideas. His article is carefully organized, and even a cursory examination of the magazine should include a fairly thorough reading of his passages on Thoroughness and The Fate of Society. Baker's comments could be applied to poetry in general today. Zabel analyses well the imagery in Stevens' poetry, while Finch concludes that Stevens is a real American poet in spite of the general howl that he follows in the steps of the French. Simons is factual with a dull subject