LONDON LETTER
257
Apart from these tributes to tradition, there have been two inter–
esting experiments. The first is Samuel Beckett's Joycean
Waiting for
Godot.
Beautifully written, it is only saved from being a nihilistic Saroyan
bore by the magnificent acting of Hugh Burden. It is hard to imagine
the announced cast's making it go in New York. The second is
Darkling
Child,
a verse play-his first-by the young American poet W. S.
Merwin.
It
has one or two soft spots, but is as a whole written with
real dramatic force. Mr. Kenneth Tynan, who reviews for
The Ob–
server,
thought that, compared to Tennessee Williams' "exquisite play,"
it was Icarus to Mercury. I expect this comparison was not meant to
remind us of Mercury's dubious moral reputation, but if it does, it gives
us a very fair measure of the two plays.
This is the intellectual world over which broods the slightly grubby
greatness of London, with its endless stretches of the grimy Victorian
housing that so outraged H. G. Wells (but has a charm of its own now),
its Wren churches and Nash crescents, its parks and garden, and its
universal kindness. For London, unlike New York,
is
a city self-possessed.
Arthur Mizener
THE SCHOOL OF LETTERS
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
SUMMER 1956
Courses on the graduate level in the theory and practice of Literary Criticism
Including work toward advanced degrees in
Criticism, English Literature, and Comparative Literature
SENIOR FELLOWS
John Crowe Ransom
Lionel Trilling
Allen Tate
Austin Warren
Philip Rahv
Courses to be given during the Summer of 1956
Richard Chase,
James and Faulkner: An intensive reading of representative
stories and novels.
Northrop Frye,
The Poetry and Symbolism of W.illiam Blake.
Richard EHmann,
The Meaning in Joyce and Yeats.
Karl Shapiro,
Evaluations of Modern Poetry.
Address inquiries to Newton P. Stallknecht,
Director, The School of Letters, English Building,
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
