Book Reviews 441
Quest in ModernAmericanPoetry
Peter Revell/London:Vision Press; Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1981.
Pp. 245.
PeterRevell's Quest in ModernAmericanPoetrysurveysimmenseterritory:
five
long poems by five very different
poets, the major philosophicalinfluenceson
those works, and the biographicalcontextsin which they were created. Revell
attemptsto give thismaterialcoherenceprimarily
by focusingon a broad unifying
theory of quest: "The modern American long poem . . . has in common among
its several examples the qualityof providingthe record of a spiritualquest, not
merely,like Wordsworth's,the 'growthof a poet's mind' but the growthof a
poet's power to find spiritual significancein a materialisticworld" (p. 25).
Throughoutthe book, Revell repeatedlyremindshis readers of the "close connections, in personal relationshipsand literaryaims" (p. 15), linkingConrad
Aiken, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, H.D., and WilliamCarlos Williams. His documentationof theirbiographicalconnections(connectionsthatwere in some cases
extensive, in others very limited)is thoroughand accurate. However, his conceptionoftheircommonpoeticaims-those ofthespiritualquest outlinedaboveproves too generalto commandinterestand too exclusivelythematicto persuade
us of the group's closeness.
Revell argues that in theirpoems these Americans of the early twentieth
centurywere embarkedon a quest for a view of life and theirexperience that
would restoremeaningand harmonyin a world empiricalscience and positivist
philosophyhad made to appear meaningless.In theirlong poems this quest is
expressed in the figureof a journey-a "spiritual voyage throughthe chaos of
time and matter(an experience apparentlylimitedand directionless)towardthe
attainmentof a sense of infinitepossibility,an experienceunlimitedby timeand
matter" (p. 37). These journeys are essentiallyopen-ended,always suggesting
"undiscovered countrybeyond" (p. 25). Accordingto Revell, thispatterncommon to the five poets is of such fundamentalimportancethat "the frequently
reiteratedclaim of the fragmentation
of Americanletterscannot in theircase be
sustained" (p. 17).
In his introduction
Revell brieflysurveysall fivecareers,comparingthepoets'
various attitudestowardAmericanculturalhistoryand European tradition.Admittingthat Eliot, Pound, and H.D. appear as "the partyof Europe," Williams
as "the partyof America," and Aiken as having"a footin both camps," Revell
nonethelessasserts "there were, ofgreatersignificance,similaritiesin theirintercivilizationand in theirpoetic aims that strike
pretationof twentieth-century
deeper than any differencesconcerningthe evaluation of new and old world
cultures" (p. 18). He has in mindthe "quest" and uses the book's firstchapter
to sketch its intellectualbackgrounds.Noting thatthe metaphorof exploration
has provided a characteristicmeans by which American authors have unified
otherwisefragmentedworks, Revell locates partialantecedentsforthe modern
quest mode in the works and concerns of Emerson, Poe, and Melville and fuller
models in the poems of Whitman,the "master marinerof Americanliterature"
(p. 39). Believingthat poems of quest necessarilyevolve a philosophyforeval-
442 Modern Philology(May 1984)
uating experience, Revell brieflyoutlines the world view that early twentiethpositivists.He also introcenturythinkersinheritedfromthe nineteenth-century
duces two "rival set[s] of ideas" (p. 49)-Freudian psychologyand Bergsonian
philosophy-as pervasive forces shapingthe philosophiesof writersin the first
halfof the twentiethcentury.
Revell's presentationof the sense of malaise and alienationwidespread in
the earlytwentiethcenturytakes the formof an indigestiblesmorgasbordof bits
fromBertrandRussell, JosephWood Krutch,T. H. Huxley, MortonWhite,and
HenryAdams, while othermodernattitudesare supposedlytypifiedby remarks
of Jackson Pollock's or of one of Robert Kennedy's biographers!Luckily,this
crude approach to intellectualhistorydoes not continuein laterchapters;there,
Revell's biographicaldocumentationis respectableand disciplined,while his selectionsfromthe poets' essays and lettersprovideusefulglosses forthe poems.
Each of the fivechaptersdevoted to a singlepoet's workbeginswithseveral
on the artist'scareer,backgroundmaterialrelevantto the
pages of information
productionor conception of the long poem that is the chapter's focus. In each
case, Revell also considersin greaterdetailthe impactof Freudianor Bergsonian
ideas and explores other philosophicalcontexts (Eliot's interestin Bradley,or
Pound's Neoplatonism) that help illuminatethe poet's quest. Because Revell
chooses to presentso muchcontextualmaterial,onlyabout twentypages remain
foranalysisof thetextof each longpoem. Lacking space fordetailedexplication,
Revell provides a descriptiveoverview in which he surveysthe poem's action
and explains whatspecificsettingsor charactersmightrepresent.To focuson the
quest pattern,he emphasizes evidence of the poet's reactionagainst pervading
materialism,thatis, the processive attemptsto substitutespiritualvalues, and the
journey formin which those attemptsare embodied. Revell does not discuss
language, prosody, or technique but in each case attends to key images and
symbolssince poets of quest "characteristically. . . choose a symbolto express
[their]sense of infinitepossibility"(p. 37).
All five chapters provide solid introductionsfor the general reader. Each
representsa sympatheticapproachto thepoetictextand a responsiblecompilation
of criticalopinions(if sometimesonly a restatementof criticalcommonplaces,as
when Mauberleyis labeled "Pound's swan-songto London" [p. 102]). Revell's
chapteron Pound's poetic quest forconditionsin whichcivilizationmay flourish
is the book's most interesting-perhapsbecause The Cantos gain morethan the
otherpoems froma schematicoverview thathighlightsintegrating
patterns.By
and large, however,Revell's treatmentof The Divine Pilgrim,The Cantos, Four
Quartets, Trilogy,and Paterson as poems of quest contributeslittlenew insight
to establishedcriticalunderstanding.
Even forthe generalreader who desires simplyan introduction
to poetryof
the period, I would offersome warnings.Revell searches constantlyforconnectionsand similarities,yetthe linkshe identifiesare oftenso broad or vague as to
be almostmeaningless.For instance,he declares thatthe "fundamentalpattern"
in Eliot's and Emerson's work is "not dissimilar": "Both persistedthroughout
theirlives in the search for answers to questions of the deepest religiousand
metaphysicalimportance:the meaningof human experience and the possibility
Book Reviews 443
of knowledge" (p. 27). Surely,as muchcould be said forSwift,Milton,or Wordsworthand formost of the world's greatestartists.
This problemof excessive generalityapplies to Revell's definitionof quest,
with more serious consequences. His broad conceptionof quest allows him to
considertogetherpoets and poems ofvastlydifferent
character.Quite responsibly,
Revell is quick to acknowledge these differences;unfortunately,
he is equally
quick to dismiss theirimportance,so thathis discussion of modernpoetrylacks
proportion.For instance, the poets' "differencesconcerningthe evaluation of
new and old worldcultures,"brushedaside so easily in a passage quoted above,
in fact have profoundeffectson the works these men and women produced
(compare, say, Williams's language and subject matterwithEliot's) and on their
"poetic aims." The differencesthat Revell most oftenunderestimatesinvolve
poetic formand technique. Having outlinedWilliams's objectionsto the "exoticism" of Pound and H.D., particularlyto H.D.'s "staid" Hellenism,forexample,
Revell announces: "So muchforthedifferences.But thequarrelwas finallyabout
methods,not about differencesof intention,since Williams shared with Pound
and H.D. the century'scommon heritageof materialisticsocial motivationand
non-imaginative,
empiricalperception" (p. 177). Yet new approaches to poetic
"methods"-diction, rhythm,
forms,subject matter-were fundamentalto these
poets. When Pound cried "make it new," he was indeed concernedwithmaking;
the principlesof imagismhad nothingto do withthemeand everything
to do with
craft;Eliot's tributeto Pound as "il migliorfabbro" did not commendhis "intention."Poets of this period ask to be considered as makers.Revell, however,
attendsto theircraftand prosody only in discussions of the "open form" characteristicof quest poems; even then he speaks largelyin thematicterms: "In
spiteof its movementin a circle, spirallingin throughconcentriclayersof human
experienceon to thepoet's own consciousness,thestructureof TheDivine Pilgrim
is ultimatelyopen, in thatat its conclusion it begins the mind'sjourney outward
again fromthe groundsof self-knowledge"(p. 93).
For themostpart,Revell remainscontentto definemodernity
bythemealone;
forinstance:"The themesthatare centralto Aiken's poem as a wholecharacterize
his modernity;the ego adrifton the sea of the unconscious,theinterplayof erotic
and neuroticimpulses in urban life, the psychic stresses and exhilarationsof
civilizedgodlessness" (p. 75). How are we to reconcilethiswithRevell's statement
that Aiken's echoing of nineteenth-century
writersin tone and phrasingmakes
him "appear as the latest exponent of fin de sidcle romanticism"(p. 68)? By
givingsuch primacyto thematicconsiderations,Revell failsto relatehis conception of quest to conventionalways of understandingmodernism.(In fact, the
words "modernist" and "modernism" do not appear in thisstudy.)One wonders
whetherPeter Revell's intentionmightbe more radicallyrevisionistthan he acknowledges.Does he wish to instateAiken as a major poet of the period? Does
he intendto suggesttheinadequacy,perhapsthe narrowness,of our usual notions
of modernism?If so, it is unfortunate
thathe does not presentthese provocative
ideas explicitlyor support them with more specificevidence, rangingbeyond
thematics.
Lynn Keller/University
of Wisconsin-Madison