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The dust jacket to Camille Paglia's BREAK, BLOW, BURN boasts that the famed culture
critic who once penned SEXUAL PERSONAE has written a "[d]aring, erudite, entertaining"
text that is "destined to become a landmark." Initially such acclaim seems hard
to swallow. What, one has every right to ask, does Camille Paglia know about poetry?
Her forty-three readings of distinguished English-language poems demonstrate,
however, Paglia's ability to appreciate and critically examine verse from a number
of important historical and socio-cultural contexts.
In her forthright "Introduction," Paglia admits "the foundation of my literary education…was a technique known as the New Criticism, which studied the internal and formal qualities of poetry." Hostile to Popular Culture and intertextuality, New Critics considered poems in and of themselves, where a consideration of matters related to but not inherent in the text were summarily dismissed. It is surprising, then, to see one of America's most well-known culture critics perform such close, isolated analyses with intelligence and grace. Partially indebted to Harold Bloom for this approach, Paglia claims the "triumph of ideology over art" has produced "few professors who know how to 'read' anymore." To that end, each of her readings highlights some of the more conspicuous aesthetic and formal trends unique to the development of English literature.
But moving beyond the New-Critical approach, each discussion addresses the socio-historical concerns that inform and shape the poems themselves. For example, the Imagist movement is discussed concisely and accurately in readings of William Carlos Williams's "The Red Wheel Barrow" and "This is Just to Say," whereas the Confessional movement is examined in the discussion of Plath's "Daddy." While none of her interpretations breaks new ground, Paglia expertly synthesizes a wide range of prevailing critical observations into a smooth, confident prose.
One of my original objections to this book, and its intent to teach masses of people to read poetry as poetry, was that her readings --- responsible but merely introductory --- might be considered definitive. How many people, for example, will consult John Kerrigan or Helen Vendler's more thorough, rigorous discussions of Shakespeare's sonnets after reading Paglia's digests of sonnets 73 and 29? But this concern faded quickly as I realized each gloss compressed and alluded to scholarship in such a way that invited further reading. Though her prose is always clear, it never condescends or assumes the reader is anything less than already intelligent. Therefore, key concepts are introduced and extended but ultimately left open for further consideration.
Paglia's decision to engage forty-three well-anthologized poems is unadventurous but practical. Many high school English teachers, for example, may come to this book for ideas on how to introduce such poems to their students. Given Paglia's appreciation for the English language from its beginnings, however, I would have liked to have seen at least one Medieval lyric or an excerpt from Chaucer. And while a historical organization is evident, British-English poems are conspicuously absent once the American Romantics are introduced less than halfway through --- a common decision by anthologists who, consciously or otherwise, suggest the supremacy of American literature in the twentieth century.
In the end, my sole sustainable objection lies in the book's subtitle, where the author is said to read forty-three of the WORLD'S best poems, though only English-language poetry is included. Paglia herself stresses the impact foreign-language poetry has had upon her appreciation of verse. Therefore, the ethnocentric subtitle is neither representative of the author's beliefs nor accurate in terms of aesthetic truth. Most likely, it was added to the title by the publisher as a way of selling more books --- a decision Paglia surprisingly did not catch or suppress.
--- Reviewed by Tony Leuzzi
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