Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent debut.
Jonathan Aaron, Second Sight (Harper Colophon, 1982)

Of the books presented in the 1982 National Poetry Series, the only poet who has since emerged as a real force is Naomi Shihab Nye. Which is quite a shame, because Jonathan Aaron, whose debut effort this was, is truly one of the more gifted poets to emerge in post-WW2 America. As one should expect from the cover of Second Sight (Giacometti's sculpture "Dog"), Aaron's work is whip-crack surrealism laced with a jaded eye and a sharp wit:

"...the days
turned into years at a speed suggested
only by the thin, metallic whine
I could sometimes hear
when the phone went dead: a foul-up
in the circuitry, or
the sonic afterglow
of the spoken word. Meanwhile,
her lapses of memory and taste grew beyond
my simple faith in the facts."
("Second Sight")

Aaron does have a few rough edges in his poetry; some of the pieces in the book (especially at the very beginning, and a few towards the end) are less than inspiring, and as should be obvious from the piece quoted above there are some line break problems ("or" is one of those words which should never, ever end a line of poetry. Ever.), but this is a fantastic debut from a poet of great promise. Unfortunately, the twenty years since have seen only one more collection, Corridor, emerge (a third has been mentioned since 1999 in various bios, but has yet to see the light of day as of this writing). Aaron is worth far more acclaim than he has so far received. **** ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Highly accomplished craftsman
Anthony Hecht is a very fine craftsman. Formally, his poems are inventive and carefully polished. Especially impressive is his accomplishment with somewhat complicated rhyme schemes, which frequently leads to sonic effects that are truly magical. This was his third collection in as many decades, and this demonstrates, if nothing else, a deep commitment to "getting it right". And yet, while I cannot help but admire his professional aesthetic, his wide scope of allusion, the comprehensive learning he demonstrates again and again, and his tonal range, I must say that relatively few of these poems stimulate what Vladimir Nabokov described as the "indescribable tingle of the spine" that signals the highest pleasure that literature has to offer. That said, Hecht does accomplish this on occasion, at least for me, in such poems as "Peripeteia", "The Lull", "A Birthday Poem", and, particularly, "Coming Home (from the journals of John Clare)". This is very far from a small achievement.

Appreciation
This book of poems is not quite as good as The Venetian Vespers.But I find myself asking how any book of modern poetry could be.The title of the book comes from one of Shakespeare's love sonnets and is expressed in the final stanzas of "A Birthday Poem"

"The picture is black and white, mere light and shade.
Even the sneakers' red
Has washed away in acids.A voice is spent,
Echoing down the ages in my head:
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

O my most dear, I know that live imprint
Of that smile of gratitude,
Know it more perfectly than any book.
It brims upon the world, a mood
Of love, a mode of gladness without stint.
O that I may be worthy of that look."

O that we readers may be appreciative of such a book! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Outstanding!
Excellent for poetry lovers everywhere. Hecht's essay alone is worth the price of the book. Herbert's poetry still delights, challenges, exalts, reveals, inspires after almost 400 years. T.S. Eliot said first rank Christian poetry must express how a Christian actually feels in relation to loving Jesus, not how one wants to feel or ought to feel. In this, Herbert excels almost all religious poetry in the canon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

It knows me.........
Anthony Hecht is simply the best living poet in America, perhaps the world.And this collection of poems is his best.In particular, the eponymous twenty-six page poem that forms the center of the book is the most meditative, sensitive, exquisite poem of our age.Moreover, it is indispensable for anyone wishing to acquaint himself or herself with Hecht's work, for amidst all the exquisite imagery, contemplations of life and mortality, play of light and dark, is the autobiography of Hecht, rendered as masterfully and wonderfully as anything I've ever read. Mr. Hecht is erudite in history and literature, and though the knowledge and feel of the woe of mankind is ever present in his works.He is also aware of those moments of presentiment when its weight is lifted.Take, for example, these lines from the poem "Still Life" regarding the moments just before dawn:

Why does this so much stir me, like a code
Or muffled intimation
Of surprises and preordained events?
It knows me, and I recognize its mode
Of cautionary, spring-like hesitation,
This silence so impacted and intense.

As in a water-surface I behold
The first, soft, peach decree
Of light, its pale inaudible commands.
I stand beneath the pine tree in the cold,
Just before dawn, somewhere in Germany,
A cold, wet, Gerand rifle in my hands.

In two magisterial stanzas, Hecht conveys a wonder and terror through which that he has lived.With other soi-disant "poets" literally "Howling" around him, Hecht maintains, in his quiet, almost whispering, voice an authority and verbal power to convey the beauty and terror of our haunted world.Everyone entranced with life, mystery and words should own this book. ... Read more

Product Description
The formidable talents of Anthony Hecht, one of the most gifted of contemporary American poets, and Helen Bacon, a classical scholar, are here brought to bear on this vibrant translation of Aeschylus' much underrated tragedy The Seven Against Thebes.The third and only remaining play in a trilogy dealing with related events, The Seven Against Thebes tells the story of the Argive attempt to claim the Kingdom of Thebes, and of the deaths of the brothers Eteocles and Polyneices, each by the others hand.Long dismissed by critics as ritualistic and lacking in dramatic tension, Seven Against Thebes is revealed by Hecht and Bacon as a work of great unity and drama, one exceptionally rich in symbolism and imagery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Aeschylus' play that falls between Oedipus Rex and Antigone
After the banishment of Oedipus, his twin sons Eteocles and Polyneices were elected co-kings of Thebes.They agreed to reign for alternate years, but Eteocles, would not relinquish the throne at the end of the first year, accusing his brother of having an evil disposition and banishing him from the city.Eventually Polyneices would return with six other champions to lay siege to the city."The Seven Against Thebes" expedition ends with both Eteocles and Polyneices dead, killed by each other, before the walls of Thebes.After that, the defenders crushed the besiegers and the seven proud generals were all killed, except for Adrastus, who managed to escape thanks to his divine horse, Arion.However, the defenders of Cadmeia, the acropolis of Thebes, had so many losses that from then on any victory which looked more like a defeat as called a Cadmeian victory.

The Aeschylus tragedy "Seven Against Thebes" is the only surviving play of a connected trilogy dealing with the sins of Laius (father of Oedipus) and the curse subsequently brought down upon his descendants.Aeschylus focuses on a prophecy that had been made regarding the sons of Oedipus: "They shall divide their inheritance with the sword in such a manner as to obtain equal shares."The play begins with Eteocles in command of the city and Polyneices arriving with his army of Argive soldiers.It begins with Eteocles making a call to arms and is followed by a description of the oath taken by the seven generals of the attacking armies.When the brothers kill each other during the battle by the walls of Thebes it becomes clear their "equal shares" refers to their common graves.The tragedy ends with a brief appearance by Antigone, who declares her intention to bury her brother Polyneices in defiance of the command of Creon, who now becomes king of Thebes.

This tragedy comes after the events related by Sophocles in "Oedipus at Colonus," but obviously before what happens in his "Antigone." What is interesting here is the psychological portrait that Aeschylus presents of the two brothers, even though only one of them appears in the play (the idea of having to different settings was apparently too much of a radical idea for drama at that time).Such insights are nominally something we would expect from Sophocles, but this is Aeschylus who is developing the split between the brothers in terms of oppositional pairs of characteristics.Clearly the idea is that one cannot exist (live) without the other, which makes their dying together justified by logic as well as the curse on the House of Oedipus.

It is difficult to judge this play and appreciate it as the climax to this particular trilogy without knowing much more about the preceding plays dealing with the two earlier generations of the house of Cadmus.What is clear is that Eteocles does not deserve much sympathy from the audience given that he has a greater culpability in his demise than either his father or his sister, at least in terms of what we know from the plays of Sophocles, which is the flaw in this assessment.

excellent translation from excellent series
This excellent edition of Seven Against Thebes is part of Oxford University Press' ongoing series Greek Tragedy in New Translations, the idea behind which is that these plays should be translated into English not just by Greek scholars, but also by poets, to preserve as much of the real communicative power and drama as possible.

This edition is ideal for reluctant students assigned to read Seven Against Thebes, and may even succeed in sparking their interest in the subject. The language is true to the play and stays vivid even through a few static moments.

As with all the plays in this series, the introduction provides information not only about how the translation was accomplished, but also about how the play would have been performed, and perceived, by the ancient Greeks, what's missing from the play (namely, the first two plays of a trilogy), and notes about how the play fits into the scheme of Greek tragedy.

Other plays in the series, such as Oedipus the King, are also highly recommended.

This review applies only to the Hecht/Bacon translation published by Oxford University Press in their Greek Tragedy in New Translations series, and not to the Dover Thrift edition.

When the gods send destruction there is no escape.
This is the third play in a trilogy, the other two being lost. The play results in an end to the curse on the Oedipus family. However, it is different from the approach later used by Sophocles. Here, there is noredemption from within. The curse ends only when the family becomesextinct. The two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, who were toshare power in Thebes, have quarrelled. Eteocles seizes power andPolyneices goes to get help from Adrastus, King of Argos, and six otherkings. Eteocles sends champions to fight the six kings at six of the gatesof Thebes. The seventh gate is left to Eteocles. However, that is the gateto which his brother comes. Eteocles feels that he has no choice but tofight and further incur the wrath of the gods by shedding kindred blood."When the gods send destruction there is no escape." Eteocles hadan "out" of his predicament but he choses not to use it. Onereally sees the pains of conflict and war in this play. ... Read more

Product Description
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Product Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on March 22, 2002. The length of the article is 571 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Anthony Hecht The Darkness and the Light.
Author: Daniel Garrett
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2002
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 76Issue: 2Page: 157(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Product Description
Word count: 4907. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on April 1, 2004. The length of the article is 4474 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The morality of Anthony Hecht.
Author: David Yezzi
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2004
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 22Issue: 8Page: 27(7)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more