226
PARTISAN REVIEW
four sheet for a poem that is badly
in need of it. Ransom's pertina–
cious dissection of the poem, on
the other hand, reminds one some–
what of a Heidelberg encyclopedist
reviewing a package of Turns.
Miss Lynskey will have none of
Ransom's theory that Milton, in a
publicity-seeking mood, deliberate–
ly wrote "Lycidas" as an irregular
pastoral elegy. "I do not recall
that Dryden, Addison, and John–
son, however they may have been
irritated by some qualities of Mil–
ton, were disturbed by the ten un–
rhymed lines," says Miss Lynskey.
" [The] irregularity does not seem
to have disturbed many people in
the last three hundred years." This
is a new kind of tone for this type
of argument.-"No one else has
ever complained before about my
rooms not being warm enough,
Mr. Ransom. I've been running
this place for thirty
years~
and
never
once
have I heard a word of
complaint about the lumps in the
mashed potatoes." But then this is
an indescribably mixed-up fight.
When Miss Lynskey moves in
for the kill, Ransom's "Shakespeare
at Sonnets" makes the shooting
easy; for
this
essay, which Miss
Lynskey informs us is one that
"Mr. Ransom's friends urged him
not to publish," strings together a
considerable aggregation of blun–
ders. Lack of space and a wave of
ennui forbid a summary of Miss
Lynskey's extensive exposures of
Mr. Ransom's contradictions; but
she leaves little doubt that Ran–
som's friends, in urging him to sup–
press "Shakespeare at Sonnets,"
were giving him sound advice. It
is an essay in which contrarieties
and fixed ideas arrive early and
work overtime; yet it scarcely sums
up Ransom. But then Miss Lyn–
skey is here gathering only the best
wood for her hatchet.
With the little magazines, Mr.
Ransom's own
Kenyon Review,
after its valuable Henry James
number, disgorges a winter offer–
ing in the shape of four poems by
Genevieve Taggard. This would
seem to
be
too many. Surely the
Saturday R eview of Literature
people are irritably biting their
lips at having to see these verses
published in other pages than their
own.
Hush new child, how
Give you good love?
(You now so new.)
writes Miss T., and continues:
(Hush, children, while mother
sings.)
As if to make up for this, the
Kenyon
prints a distinguished new
poem by Allen Tate; several ex–
tracts from Gide's Journals (on
Valery, Claude! and Proust) in an
admirable translation by F. W. Du–
pee, which leave one unsatisfied
only by the brevity of the selec–
tions; and a bright exegetical piece
by C. G. Wallis on Cocteau's
Le
Sang d'un Poete.
View,
with its December num–
ber, is well out of the little maga–
zine class; it has become a 57th
Street edition of a ritzier
Cue,
mix–
ing surrealism with page after page
of gallery notices and full-page
Vogue-like
ads for
White Flame
("a breathtaking new perfume by
Helena Rubinstein . . . to set his
heart on fire") and for
Shocking
Radiance,
Schiaparelli's new scent,
plugged by a Dali drawing. In
spite of its frequent foolishness and
its well-heeled
enfant terrible
pos–
turings, I should be sorry to see
View
come to an end. Once ban–
ned by the Post Office, the Decem–
ber issue is now permitted to go
through the mails again, and per–
sons in far-off Wichita and Salt
Lake City may read a poem on
pink paper by Charles Henri Ford,
