Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Kunitz, Stanley (Vol. 148) - David Yezzi (review date 1996)

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David Yezzi (review date 1996)

SOURCE: “To Turn Again,” in Parnassus, Vol. 21, Nos. 1–2, 1996, pp. 215–29.

[In the following positive review of Passing Through, Yezzi provides an analysis of recurring “key images” and archetypes in Kunitz's poetry and comments favorably on Kunitz's effort to construct a “personal mythology.”]

When asked by Christopher Busa in The Paris Review interview if he felt differently about translating the poems of Baudelaire, whom he could never know personally, than about translating the work of various contemporary poets, Stanley Kunitz replied “I know Baudelaire too.” Taken literally, Kunitz's contention might set a more speculative imagination to flights of wild conjecture. (“All poets are contemporaries,” he has said.) Think of the possible combinations of acquaintance that such time travel would allow. What species of exquisite naughtiness could Hart Crane and John...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Stanley Kunitz with Cynthia Davis (interview date 1972)
   2. Robert Weisberg (essay date Spring 1975)
   3. Andrew Motion (review date 2 November 1979)
   4. Vernon Young (review date 22 November 1979)
   5. Alan Brownjohn (review date April 1980)
   6. Peter Stitt (review date September 1980)
   7. Cynthia A. Davis (essay date Spring 1981)
   8. Gregory Orr (essay date 1985)
   9. James Idema (review date 22 December 1985)
   10. Thomas D'Evelyn (essay date 6 March 1987)
   11. Elizabeth Kastor (essay date 12 May 1987)
   12. Calvin Bedient (review date Winter 1988)
   13. Stanley Kunitz with Peter Stitt (interview date 1990)
   14. Michael Ryan (essay date 1993)
   15. Susan Mitchell (essay date 1993)
   16. Phoebe Pettingell (review date 9–23 October 1995)
   17. A. V. Christie (review date 31 December 1995)
   18. Stanley Kunitz with Bill Moyers (interview date 1995)
   19. David Yezzi (review date 1996)
   20. Judith Kitchen (review date Summer 1996)
   21. John Taylor (review date February 1997)
   22. Stanley Kunitz with Gary Pacernick (interview date Fall 1997)
   23. Fred Moramarco and William Sullivan (essay date 1998)
   24. Linton Weeks (essay date 29 July 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright