SOURCE: "The House of Man: Ethical Symbolism in Conrad Aiken's The Clerk's Journal, " in Essays in Arts and Sciences, Vol. X, No. 1, May, 1981, pp. 79-92.

In the following essay, Olson refutes the argument that Aiken's early poetry lacks intellectual and ethical depth, and suggests that Aiken uses imagery connected with houses to express his feelings about love and human interconnectedness.

The present and ongoing critical estimate of Conrad Aiken continues to be one of modern American letters' most bizarre phenomenons. While a small number of supporters quietly insist that he may justifiably be considered as among the three or four most important poets of the century, his reputation languishes, as it has for decades, amid a detritus of misinformation, faulty generalization, and often well-intentioned but unperceptive commentary. Among the many reasons which can plausibly be brought forward to explain Aiken's obscurity is that following much of the confused...