Books, Arts & Manners: The Politics of Poetry

Robert Frost Himself, by Stanley Burnshaw (George Braziller, 342 pp., $19.95)

It seems at least perplexing how the notion arose that there is little or no relationship between so exalted a sphere as the art of poetry and the Realpolitik of human affairs. There are three aspects of the question that ought to be more fully explored: 1) the relationship of the poet to politics in general; 2) the often very fierce politics involved in the preservation of a poet’s reputation, not only among his peers and rivals, but also with the public at large; and 3) the more abstract consideration of the relationship between what Charles Péguy called la mystique and, again, the Realpolitik of human affairs.

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Thomas P. McDonnell

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Robert Frost Himself, by Stanley Burnshaw (George Braziller, 342 pp., $19.95)

It seems at least perplexing how the notion arose that there is little or no relationship between so exalted a sphere as the art of poetry and the Realpolitik of human affairs. There are three aspects of the question that ought to be more fully explored: 1) the relationship of the poet to politics in general; 2) the often very fierce politics involved in the preservation of a poet’s reputation, not only among his peers and rivals, but also with the public at large; and 3) the more abstract consideration of the relationship between what Charles Péguy called la mystique and, again, the Realpolitik of human affairs.