Bad Bookside Manner

translate, loosely but recognizably, a famous line from Rilke's "Wendung": "Werk des Gesichts ist getan.9' In Rilke's poem, completing the "work of the sight" prepares the poet to do "heart-work" on the images the eye has gathered; he has reached a momentous "turning" in his career. Lowell alludes to Rilke ironically, for his own poem ends with nothing more momentous than dull assurance that it is morning, that he has made it through a bad night. To miss the allusion is to miss the self-deflating irony also. Enough said. Scholars working on Lowell will want to consult this book for its biographical information and discussion of manuscript drafts. The general reader can do better elsewhere: the short essays by Randall Jarrell and Irvin Ehrenpreis, the books by Hugh Staples, Alan Williamson, and for the chapter on Lowell's syntax Marjorie Perloff. The book we would all like to have, clarifying Lowell's relationship to the literary and social history of his time, sorting out the strengths and limitations of his work, remains to be written. Whoever writes it will need to clarify, and sometimes to question, the assumptions about poetics, psychology, and politics implicit in the poetry. Lowell's poetry has enduring value, but it is also very uneven, permeated with confusions and unresolved conflicts that cannot be explained away by New Critical incantations about the rich complexity of experience. We do Lowell's work no honor if, instead of trying to understand and evaluate it, we cover it over with vague praise.