PARTISAN REVIEW
sign of how elusive is the truth." Is it not just this elusiveness that lends
desperation to what Kafka called the attempt to cast anchor? Elusive–
ness and anchor-casting are, of course, mere metaphors, artistic terms,
while unconscious and preconscious are, at least in intention, scientific
terms; and "truth," in this large sense, is doubtless neither here nor
there. But in this case as in many others it is art, not science or philoso–
phy, that "explains" art. By talking casually of putting down roots, or
by jesting at truth, like Pilate, we can signify many kinds and levels of
experience all at once. So can art, and this is one of the reasons for its
irreducibility.
Of the many penetrating studies of poetic worlds in
Rage for Order,
the most successful as a portrait of man and artist is that of George
Herbert. This is partly because his is the most attractive personality
among those discussed; at any rate, the precise affection of Warren's
treatment makes him seem so. Also, his portrait is the more smoothly
and easily traceable in that the conflict between his actual and imagined
worlds caused less strain and distortion in his essential humanity than
was the case with most of the other figures. Certainly the religion which
he ended by preaching was less of an artifact than that of Yeats, which
Warren analyzes with equal delicacy and care. But each of these essays
delineates with remarkable clarity and vividness temperaments, philoso–
phies and talents which are widely dissimilar and yet comparable in the
quality which Warren terms "metaphysical." This is as close as he comes
to devising a label; and, wisely, he goes easy on the glue. It is less ap–
plicable to some of his poets than others: he admits himself that it does
not sit too well on Pope. But it is far from being one of those superfi–
cially unifying strands so often woven into collections of articles writteri
on different occasions. By presenting it in terms of _particulars rather
than instances, Warren succeeds in making it signify an essential feature
of creative activity.
The contrast between Neider's secret-key chapters and Austin War–
ren's essays is like that between the two women, Rachel Bespaloff and
Virginia Woolf. They are both benign, both seeking to widen and deepen
the common reader's literary life by describing and interpreting books
which they consider relevant to his everyday experience. But Mme
Bespaloff tends to overinterpret and to preach; whereas Mrs. Woolf
subordinates her own ideas and attitudes to those of her subjects, but
in so doing suggests very subtly a definite scheme of values, without
implying that her readers share or ought to share that scheme.
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