Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Sidney J. Stephen

Critical Essay by Sidney J. Stephen

["Portrait of the Poet as Landscape,"] coming as it does after nearly twenty years of writing and publishing poetry, appears to present a view on what a poet's role might be in the society in which he finds himself. For this reason alone, if for no other, the poem might be accorded a close reading, an exploration of the idea of the "poet-as-Adam" which seems to have been a personal reflection of the poet. (p. 553)

An attempt at a reconciliation [between belief and disbelief] is dominant in "Portrait of the Poet", and this is done by way of drawing on the Jewish concept of Adam as he appears in both the Old Testament and in the Book of Zohar, a tract which is central to the doctrines of the Jewish Kabbalah. Klein was quite at home with the Kabbalah…. (pp. 553-54)

[For] the modern Jewish Kabbalist, each of Adam's...
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