108
PARTISAN REVIEW
the human mind, and that the intellect must be capable of both scien–
tific and imaginative precision in order to rediscover the basic affinity
between these two major areas of secular culture, and in order to re–
establish some kind of order and unity in its own house. From what I
can judge on the basis of my experiences in the academic world, espe–
cially with people who, like Musil, come to question the positivistic faith
in the logic of science as the
only
legitimate employment of the intellect,
the issue as he stated it certainly presents what William James would
have called a "genuine option," alive, forced, and momentous. Or, at
least, it poses a constructive challenge to the critical intelligence of those
who stilI think that some form of secular humanism is worth preserving,
or that it is the only thing a critical intelligence can subscribe to as the
basis for a general theory of culture. In this respect,
The Man Without
Qualities
makes a substantial and significant contribution even though
we don't have to hail its rediscovery as falling into the category of a
neglected, forgotten work of genius.
Hans Meyerhoff
FOUR POETS OR PERHAPS THREE
THE DRAGON AND THE UNICORN.
By
Kenneth Rexroth. New Directions.
$3.00
COLLECTED POEMS.
By
Yvor Winters. Alan Swallow. $2.50
THE WHITE THRESHOLD.
By
W. S. Grohom. Grove Press. $2.25
THE POEMS OF C. P. CAVAFY. Tronsloted by John Mavrogordato.
Grove Press. $3.25
I found
The Dragon and the Unicorn,
a travel diary of an
American's year in England, France, and Italy, always entertaining
and holding the attention except in the frequently interspersed 'philos–
ophical' meditations, which never come within hailing distance of the
Four Quartets;-are
often, it seems, mere verbal conglomerations, and
could,
in toto,
be removed with advantage. As a diarist, Rexroth is
always shrewd, independent in his judgment of food, wine, paintings,
and people. But the notion that he can be read on these subjects–
which include, for painting, the Chinese as well as the Florentine-as
the plain man reads the nineteenth-century poets, English or American,
seems absurd. He is scarcely "that rare bird, a thoroughly modern poet,
who can be understood by anybody...."
Intelligibility apart, is he a poet? He prints as verse, initial capitals
and all; but his lines have no metrical norm, whether accentual or
syllabic, despite the typographical appearance of something like a tetra–
meter line. Except in his 'philosophical' passages, he writes with a stac-
