SOURCE: "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Jew: Zukofsky's 'Poem beginning "The"' in Context," in Sagetrieb, Vol. 9, Nos. 1 & 2, Spring-Fall, 1990, pp. 43-64.

In the following essay, Tomas explicates "Poem beginning 'The'" as a statement by Zukofsky on his situation as a Jew in modern, secular Western society.

Critics coming to the work of Louis Zukofsky have long recognized how important his Jewish heritage has been in his poetic development. That recognition started very early in Zukofsky's career. Yet, despite this critical history, few critics have discussed how Judaism has specifically shaped Zukofsky's work. This neglect is particularly striking in that a poem exists in which Zukofsky himself tried to understand and explain his own place within that tradition. That poem is Zukofsky's 1926 poem "Poem beginning 'The.'"

As M. L. Rosenthal has suggested [in "Zukofsky: 'All My Hushed Sources,'" in Louis Zukofsky: Man and Poet, edited...