WI LLIAM PHILLIPS
507
supporting the magazine.
It
is not an outlet, says Schmidt, for work by the
Yale faculty. Could it be that Schmidt does not understand the difference be–
tween a respected national literary publication and a house organ? And we
are led to wonder whether that part of the faculty occupied with deconstruc–
tive theory and canon-bashing has resented the independence of
The Yale
Review.
Another reason for cutting off support to the journal that has been
given by President Schmidt is that Yale cannot afford to continue to give a
subsidy - which could not amount to more than the salaries of two professors
- to the magazine. This is hard to believe of one of the richest universities in
the country. After all, many universities with much smaller endowments and
lower tuitions than Yale manage to support literary magazines of general
interest. Apparently, Yale has other priorities, some ofwhich , we can be sure,
are not of greater intellectual value than
The Yale Review.
Whatever the
motives, stated or unstated, might be for the suspension of the publica–
tion, it is a myopic act, unworthy of a great university.
(Chester Kerr, a former head of the Yale University Press, has sent a
letter of protest to President Schmidt, signed by fifty-five distinguished
writers and editors.)
Harvard
University
Press
Cambridge,
MA
02138
w.p.
Breathing under Water
and Other East
European Essays
STANISLAW BARANCZAK
These superb essays focus an the role that culture,
and porticularly literature, has played in keeping the
spirit of intellectual independence alive in Western
and Central Europe. Exploring a variety of issues
from censorship to underground poetry, Baranczak
shows why, in totalitarian societies, art is believed to
have the power to make things happen .
•A remarkable book.. I cannot recall a critic of
Baranczak's acute fastidious, and exacting mind
writing so well on this terrain before. [His] taste is
impeccable, and his understanding of the aims,
strategies, and purposes of literary art is profound'
-Helen Vendler
$22 .50
cloth
