R. P. Blackmur Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Delmore Schwartz

Critical Essay by Delmore Schwartz

In The Double Agent, R. P. Blackmur characterizes his method as primarily technical, and states, with a humility which is insistent, that this method "does not tell the whole story either. The reader is conscientiously left with the real work to do." This qualification is to be accepted only when we have clear in mind what that real work is. Blackmur uses his method upon many of the best contemporary writers of verse and the results are usually such that aspects of the text have been opened up, illuminated, and even augmented by the critic. But, this being said, one must also observe the serious abstraction, incompleteness, and omission involved in Blackmur's whole method. Such an attempt at correction is given point by the fact that Blackmur's method is spreading (one's hope is that this will continue), his method is likely to be a model for both poets and critics,...
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