Reviews and News:
James Wright’s sad, tragic life: “Blunk concentrates on Wright’s intense devotion to poetry, and he fleshes out the genesis and development of various poems and collections, such as the long gestation of ‘The Branch Will Not Break,’ perhaps his most cherished book. All the while the poet’s great intelligence, volubility, generosity and humor are on display. But a literary biographer must also be intrusive, only insofar as the life informs the work. With notable candor, Blunk reports the copious harrowing facts: Wright’s mental distress and depression (first manifested as a teenager, with repeated breakdowns, hospitalizations and electroshock treatments); his relentless alcoholism, and byproducts of both, including explosive rage, recurring suicidal thoughts, obsession, shame, despair and loneliness.”
The poet Richard Wilbur has died: “Across more than 60 years as an acclaimed American poet, Mr. Wilbur followed a muse who prized traditional virtuosity over self-dramatization; as a consequence he often found himself out of favor with the literary authorities who preferred the heat of artists like Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg.”
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science has expelled Harvey Weinstein: “In a break with its tradition of ignoring members’ personal behavior, the industry group has stripped the disgraced producer of his membership.”
New York Times issues new social media guidelines: Reporters “must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation.”
Mark Twain, huckster: “The financial misadventures of Samuel Clemens, or Mark Twain, make for terrifically amusing reading…While working as a typesetter in Orion’s print shop in Keokuk, Iowa, Twain hit upon his first get-rich-quick scheme. After reading Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, 1851–1852 by William Herndon (not Lincoln’s law partner), Twain decided to ‘corner the world’s cocaine trade,’ writes Crawford. Chewing coca plants made workers docile yet capable of Stakhanovite production; surely industrialists would pay a mint for a steady supply of this workforce-enhancing narcotic.”
Virtue today: The “temperament and tenor of our time does not allow room for much gentleness, old-fashioned liberalism, or universal civility. The world is full of virtues, as Chesterton once remarked, but they are virtues gone mad—virtues broken free from any constraint, modesty, or coherence with other virtues.”
Essay of the Day:
In Aeon, David Labaree writes about how the “messy, disorganized joke” that was American higher education in the 19th century rose to preeminence in the 20th:
“From the perspective of 19th-century visitors to the United States, the country’s system of higher education was a joke. It wasn’t even a system, just a random assortment of institutions claiming to be colleges that were scattered around the countryside. Underfunded, academically underwhelming, located in small towns along the frontier, and lacking in compelling social function, the system seemed destined for obscurity. But by the second half of the 20th century, it had assumed a dominant position in the world market in higher education. Compared with peer institutions in other countries, it came to accumulate greater wealth, produce more scholarship, win more Nobel prizes, and attract a larger proportion of talented students and faculty. US universities dominate global rankings.
“How did this remarkable transformation come about? The characteristics of the system that seemed to be disadvantages in the 19th century turned out to be advantages in the 20th. Its modest state funding, dependence on students, populist aura, and obsession with football gave it a degree of autonomy that has allowed it to stand astride the academic world.
“The system emerged under trying circumstances early in US history, when the state was weak, the market strong, and the church divided. Lacking the strong support of church and state, which had fostered the growth of the first universities in medieval Europe, the first US colleges had to rely largely on support from local elites and tuition-paying student consumers. They came into being with the grant of a corporate charter from state government, but this only authorised these institutions. It didn’t fund them.”
Photo: Mount Bromo and Mount Semeru
Poem: D. A. Powell, “Nomenclature”
Get Prufrock in your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe here.
