Volume 5, Number 12 · January 20, 1966
Barefoot into Reality
By Marius Bewley
Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers
by J. Hillis Miller
Harvard, 384 pp., $7.95
The ideal review of Poets of Reality by J. Hillis Miller would be a careful correlation of two reviews, one written by a literary critic and one written by a professional philosopher. Since few persons are equally in possession of both disciplines Mr. Miller enjoys a certain advantage. The literary critic is likely to be awed by the philosophy and the philosopher is likely to be impressed with the criticism. This is not to serve warning of an unfavorable judgment. The book has considerable value and an important thesis that deserves careful consideration. It is sometimes strikingly original, and at least one of the essays or chapters is brilliant. But the criticism and the philosophy are not always perfectly at ease with each other, and there are vaporous moments when the discussion of poetry reaches towards abstraction while the metaphysical statements seem vaguely impressionistic. Such moments occur often enough to render the argument a little intangible at times. The result is a book that is unnecessarily difficult to read.
Review, 2755 words
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