PARTISAN REVIEW
617
entific way in which he justifies those opinions. And if his arguments are
intellectually contemptible, the scholarly, apparatus with which he supports
them is beneath contempt. His "bibliography" consists purely and simply of
his own
opera omnia;
if anyone else has written anything important about
Behaviorism, we are not to know it. His source notes average less than one per
13 pages of text; of the innumerable theories on human nature that he at–
tacks, we are given virtually no clues as to who projected them, and when, and
in what terms. Had
About Behaviorism
been offered as an
M.A.
thesis at any
first-rate university, it would--or at any rate should-have been rejected
with contumely.
In short, given the abysmal quality of what it has paid for, NIMH would
be fully entitled to ask for its money back. As a taxpayer, I strongly urge that it
do so.
Robert Claiborne
A lETIER IN A BOTIlE
Selected Poems By Joseph Brodsky. Trensleted end whh en Introduc–
tion by George Kline. Forewerd by
W. H.
Auden. Herper
a
Row.
$5.95.
It has been evident for some time that Joseph Brodsky is by far
the most significant Russian poet of his generation. At the launching of his
now rapidly fading career, Evgeny Evtushenko had freshness,
panache
and a
measure of civic courage. Yet even at his peak, he was at best a second-rate
poet and a facile if occasionally effective rhetorician. Andrey Voznesensky's
engaging verve and exuberant involvement with his medium earned him
plaudits in the West which in retrospect may seem somewhat excessive: seen
at close range, Voznesensky's "modernism" appears derivative and a trifle
gimmicky.
Brodsky is quite a different matter. He has had his lapses and false starts.
Some of his lines are strained or murky, but his best work has originality,
incisiveness,.depth and formal mastery which mark a major poet.
In his helpful introduction George Kline observes: "Brodsky's is a
private, . .. not a public, muse." W. H. Auden is "inclined to classify Mr.
Brodsky as a traditionalist." Both points are well taken. Brodsky's recurrent
themes are lyric poets' traditional, indeed timeless concerns-man and na-
