fane world" is the justification for
pluralism. Then Maritain asked: "Will
there be a rebirth of the chivalry of spir·
itual heroism?" And he concluded by
saying that the master of integral human·
ism, Saint Thomas Aquinas, must be the
great spiritual leader of this new world.
It is sad to say that Maritain, mainly
because of his mystical defense of "la
personne humaine," has some influence
over French youth. As Hook points out,
he is famous for rigorous argumentation,
and this attracts many dissatisfied intel·
lectual weaklings. Hook's flawless an·
alysis presents tl;lis philosopher complete·
ly stripped of rhetoric glamour; his arti–
cle should be read by all those who still
are blind enough to believe in such
anachronic solutions as "integral human-
inn."
Very truly yours,
Washington, D. C.
SAROYAN ON P. R.
Sirs:
N.
ERTECUN
The back issues of the magazine which
I ordered have come, thanks very much.
I
am
catching up on the stuff I missed,
CONTRIBUTORS
almost all of which I have enjoyed very
much: especially Mr. Schwartz's story
America, America, a very fine piece of
work; the T. S. Eliot poem, and Miss
McCarthy's review of my first two plays.
(The magazines came yesterday; haven't
read much; Williams is more right than
you are about that poetry review, al–
though the review, like the poems it re–
views very likely, is good only here and
there, and very bad steadily-if you want
air to get in, let it come from a height.
It don't matter enough to go to war over,
though, as the saying is. The fellow who
ligures the name of the magazine should
be changed may have something, but
there is always the possibility that the
fellow's name should be changed, too;
also mine; and anybody else's. I believe
your reputation or status is anti-Stalin,
or anti-Stalinism; it should be anti a
good deal more than that, which is rela–
tively not so much.. Intelligence will al–
ways quarrel with intelligence, faith with
faith, and so on, and in the meantime art
moves farther and farther away from the
people, and mischief (political) closer
and closer.
With all good wishes,
WILLIAM SAROYAN
Baltimore, Md.
HoRACE GREGORY's most recent book of verse was
Chorus For
Survival.
... LoUis MAcNEICE is at present in the United States; he
is writing a book on William Butler Yeats... , KARL
J.
SHAPIRO,
who studied at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins Uni–
versity, is a resident of Baltimore. He published in 1935 a volume,
Poems,
and has in preparation a second,
Trauma.
.•.
EMMA SwAN
has published verse in New Directions and elsewhere; she lives in
New York...• MoRTON D. ZABEL writes from San Francisco that
he is having "a beautiful trip through these stupefying parts of
America, and this town is one of the two or three good ones on the
continent." ... REuEL DENNEY's first book of verse,
Connecticut
River
and
011/u!r Poems,
was published last year in the Yale Series of
Younger Poets..•. IVAN GoLL is a Swiss who lived for many ye.ars
in
Paris and has recently come to the United States. The character
of Jean Sans Terre has figured in a number of his poems. . • .
]AMES T. FARRELL has just completed the third volume of his new
long novel. ... LoUISE BoGAN reviews poetry for
The New Yorker.
. . . ERNEST NAGEL is a member of the philosophy department of
Columbia University•... BABETTE DEUTSCH is the author of several
books of verse; she lives in New York. ... GoRDON SYLANDER is a
young poet living in Madison, Wis. . . . PAUL GoODMAN is on the
faculty of the University of Chicago.
