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PARTISAN REVIEW
hostile cnt1cs systematically render responsible for each other's ideas.
These two questions are related, since the first involves a discussion of
the epistemology of existentialism, particularly of the so-called "eidetic
method," and the second a type of suspiciously useful sophistry which is
well exemplified by Camus' theory of the absurd. I should also like
to tell you of two currents of opposition to all this, one serious and
the other just bitchy. But these, like many other things, will have to wait.
ANAPHORA
Each day with so much ceremony
begins, with birds, with bells,
with whistles from a factory;
such white-gold skies our eyes
first open on, such brilliant walls
that for a moment we wonder
H .
J.
KAPLAN
"Where
is
the music coming from, the energy?
The day was made for what ineffable creature
we must have missed?" Oh promptly he
appears and takes'his earthly nature
instantly, instantly falls
victim of long intrigue,
assuming memory and mortal
mortal fatigue.
More slowly falling into sight
and showering into stippled faces,
darkening, condensing all his light;
in spite of all the dreaming
squandered upon him with that look,
suffers our uses and abuses,
sinks through the drift of bodies,
~sinks
through the drift of classes
to evening to the beggar in the park
who, weary, without lamp or book
prepares stupendous studies:
the fiery event
of every day in endless
endless assent.
ELIZABETH BISHOP
