Criticism > Poetry > Kunitz, Stanley (Jasspon) - Robert Weisburg (essay date 1975)

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Robert Weisburg (essay date 1975)

SOURCE: "Stanley Kunitz: The Stubborn Middle Way," in Modern Poetry Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 49-73.

[In the following essay, Weisburg relates Kunitz's poetry to that of his contemporaries and discusses his major themes as they emerge in Selected Poems, 1928-1958: disease: generation, or the past: and monstrosity.]

"The easiest poet to neglect is one who resists classification" [quoted from "Imagine Wrestling with an Angel: An Interview with Stanley Kunitz," in Salmagundi (Spring Summen 1973); all subsequent quoted comments of Kunitz are also extracted from this interview]. Had he spoken of himself, Stanley Kunitz might rather have said that we neglect the poet who becomes classified too early and too narrowly. Since a brief, if sympathetic, article by Jean Hagstrum in 1958, Kunitz's impressive canon has aroused no critical interest. Instead, he has been dubiously honored, by almost...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Poetry (review date 1930)
   2. Mark Schorer (review date 1944)
   3. David Wagoner (review date 1958)
   4. Harvey Gross (essay date 1965)
   5. Jean H. Hagstrum (essay date 1967)
   6. Stanley Moss (review date 1971)
   7. Stanley Kunitz with Cynthia Davis (interview date 1972)
   8. Stanley Kunitz with Robert Boyers (interview date 1972)
   9. Robert Weisburg (essay date 1975)
   10. James Finn Cotter (review date 1980)
   11. Gregory Orr (review date 1980)
   12. Stanley Kunitz (essay date 1984)
   13. Stanley Kunitz with Peter Stitt (interview date 1990)
   14. David Barber (review date 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. How to Analyze a Poem
2. Poetry