episodes of my own learning: the most decisive one, the eeriest one, and the most anguishing one.! Twas in my early rwent ‘came from several diff my resolve was firm: style as personality, style as the actual material body of inner being. Beforeava field was the most decisive episode of my li impact of Stevens, revealing to ns fashion since then. with abook on George Herbert, realizing my energy was aging, and Thad no money ‘One night, exhausted, I tried to think how to a respite, Afiera year three hours a week, ing load; David was ay son was an only child, and I thought he needed an available com- the house, I had resolved never to work when he was at home and h my life of learning and teaching —indistinguishable to life of writing —was a patchy, often fatigued, and always anxious 1 hours after he went to sleep -any adolescent, he was staying up later than Iwas. My ry tomy circadian ie «arly hours of the morning, l envied my male colleagues, who, in Ws seemed to have everything done for them by their spouses. Marjorie Ys essay saying chat what a woman scholar needed was a wife never true lat" —at least from what the typical scholar is thought to be. 'm a eritie than a scholar, a reader and writer more taken by texts than by contexts, | was very young I continually asked myself, as I read through the works of poets, why some texts seemed so much more accomplished and ‘moving than others. Why was Milton's “L’Allegro “On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cou Joseph Conrad remarks on “that myste- roducing striking effects by means last word of the highest art.” I wanted, hardly knowing how, to detect the means of that power. Actitic of my suppose, “learned” inaway—thati, she has amemory for stories, styles, and structures she has seen before, and she understands the (Gcom the large forms of myth and nar- of prepositions and artic rons of words and synthia history of thet er, She has—at synthetic statements, Pipa ition needs an anecdote, I recall here €lto substitute fora colleague in a term course in Romantic Poetry. dl the work of the six ix poets that tw ‘was to teach, 1 could think of beginning “The Romantic poets are” or lo” and, finding none of them true, descended to looking began, “Wordsworth and Coleridge both” or “Byron individual poets, but she apologize to students beforehand.) ve had to accept the limits of my own capacities: the: and imagir ¥ scholars are incompe ‘Tounderstand a poem it’s necessary above both the poem a I ray sc ‘easy way to take the measure of a He it can be used to support any schotad he fount of poetry in the house, qu sation; my father was the (often unreasonable) pedagogical ex us to learn new languages. From workingas paymaster for the United Fruit Company in Cuba and later teaching En, Rico, my father was fluent in Spanish; he added French and I graduate study to qualify as a high-school teacher of Romance languages. SO antiphonal chorus). Classical Latin—Caesar and Virgil school. Language took on, under these many for cable shimmer, and I soon saw the disparate poet (o—and I added them to the tore of English poems I was finding, the house. In high school it was French poets that drew re, especially Ronsard (because I had discovered Shakespeare's sonnets) and Baudelaire (because I had discovered T.S. Eliot). The natural act of a critic is to compare, and I was always comparing. was always When I wrote my first “poem that a poem was something that scanned and rliymed. It teen, when I read and me saw that a poem cou nets, and launched myself into a steady the following ten years the ony honeIegends of my childhood all had to do with words: at nine months thar by the time I was one, I knew a hun~ dred words er my parents’ death desk headed "We say the “Our Fat , “Daddy, ean Tsay and did. (Why any father would wane to teach his four-year-old to re- cite the Pater Noster is another question.) My mother (who by the rules of the Boston school system had to relinquish at marriage her work asa primary-school -vas the fount of poetry in the house, quoting it frequently in conver~ x father was the (often unreasonable) pedagogical experimenter, seeing 4 ee hhow far he could press us to learn new languages. From working as a paymaster “em sont beginning “The Romantic poets are” or for the United Fruit Company in Cuba and later teaching English in Puerto irre anal thean rues dlasceidad w looking: he added French and Italian during post- ‘graduate study to qual ‘we children coo (my sister and I, tha house after school) were to lear frst Spanish, and then French, and th Latin was being purveyed to us at church and at my chool (we sang high and low Mass, the standard Latin asthe Holy Week Tenebrae, as well as the Psalms i antiphonal chorus). Classical Larin—Caesar and Virgil—was added in hi Language took on, under these many forms, a strange and inexp cable shimmer, and I soon saw the disparate poetic effects possible indifferent ‘ ii nd prosodic systems. My father gave ws simple poems in Span ae ee times of my own capa inti quer, Dario—and L added them tothe store of English poems] was finding 3 ei, are to meas compelling ax the Iabyrintha. in the anthol ‘the house. In high school it was French poets that drew A a Pet be incompetent asatheo= tne, expecially Ronsard (because {had discovered Shakespeare's sor % he nyelictars/nre [ncoppecein aa: aaa ‘Baudelaire (because I had discovered T. S. Eliot). The natural act of a mr “sai here nl aa 10 compare, and I was always comparing. e te a scholar—without a profound knowl- ‘Twas always writing, too. When I wrote my first “ ‘ 1p in on a single poem to illustrate an ideolog= scanned and rhymed. tends to falsify both the poem and the poet in question, i easy way to take the measure of a lyric: it must be seen rolksely Mase. From the tne 1 every ay exe Suey began wa sung Requiem pen every day was necessarily the monthly or yearly me's death. With the Mass and the Dis dre as dily brea, never deprived. Against the disappointments and losses n ey were obeying Cardinal Cushing’ for pulpit, under pain of mortal se, 1 couldn't ever publicly reveal what 1 ‘two friends and I heard that certain nuns had warned We were innocent ‘our parents and getting A's and we didn’ this tony to Crea Misa he lage and sid that + in his high school had said to him at fiftee te oe. ANTHODUETION 7 Anellectual life, In my classes in BY ‘not only did { come upon a new way of looking at ial and evidential expo- ion’Test and applied for shelved the idea of ‘The mind's a pros Knows no joy u ‘The innocent curtains are blown apart, ‘Olympus presses a golden shower. Jing and chen elation that L felt when ‘pon me, but was oo ignorantat hat though I tried to make them mally accurate and formally eompetent. At lat, 2s U happily wrote found my true genre, the more prosaic one of criticism, and a esse hes des p4 1Ww OCEAN, THE BIRD, AND THE SCHOLAR xy where Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and Elizabeth Bishop were present ‘one of them asked me if1 weote poetry. I confessed to my lingering i ing about stopping, They laughed me to seorn, telling me that A been meant to be a poet and had tried to stop, I'd immediately have found Jfprey to migraines, indigestion, insomnia, or something worse, thatthe had to ask why thought such, (operas, poems, autobiograpl |. My first external action stemming from independence of INTROPUETION 9 Terman, gave me my frst permanent model of vid, andl pene emotions was tacitly Tencountered ivating em and had left what I saw jveness. When I ~ Jonson which express anted both for us asa family sud for my work: “Freedom and truth; with love from those begot.” professional experience asa graduate student was hear the chairman {Harvard say to me warningly, as he signed my seek of classes, “You know we don! 2" 1 left his office; recommended my th ‘another (Douglas Bush, who, like John Kelleher, knew frst interview (“He's not even a aching our the course number him- ‘course in Chaucer. But he couldn't class from eight to nine o und felt I didn’t have a job following year the chairman 5» began to ask me to agues went on leaves in asked me to give a course of my own. A striking advance con the other hand, took reviewing as the see why it should be looked down ‘on, Because of my slender means, 1 took every reviewing job I could gets re- ‘viewing was an ageeeable and incelleetual way to earn money, and it became he new. To be asked to write on a new book by John or Elizabeth Bishop was already a joys and re- the general public taught me to aim in my prose for jon and a personal voice. After Thad been writing for some years for the York Times Book Review and the New York Review of Books, Uhad a illiann Shawn ofthe Now Yorker, asking me tobe t im, Mr, Shawn gave free rein, unlimited space, el hetaleofmy very frst New Yorker review, because ised ightthey are connected in the fluent progress of a poem— and stylistic originality. Each poet presents a new stylistic in each case, ‘map by which one can deaw a path ting othe view (moet vividly expressed by Rand anu ponderous; to show (onsra Coleridge and others) power and fineness of his asa writer who made original the lyric genres. In commenting on Dickinson, I wanted ‘The presumption of commentary, sry works are complex enough presumption of aesthetic relations governing the structural and formal shapes theysaecustomed to being accompa 1s did when I encountered the absence: ‘emotional upheaval known as m vf the young, Meanwhile, those of us Jn what Stevens tiant and productive atmosphere” of poetry eransmit as far as and in the classroom, the beautiful, subversive, sustaining, i ng, legacy of the poets. The pieces of writing in this col- ‘The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar How the Arts Help Us to Live embodiments of jon program “and how the study’ ofthe humanities shou ~ Liwant to propose that che humanities shoul