In the current issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review (Winter, 1938) Allen Tate clarifies the statement with which the preface to his Selected Poems ends. In an article on his “Ode to the Confederate Dead,” the author points out the difference between feeling and experience, between knowledge “about” something and the knowledge as the thing itself. “In a manner of speaking,” he writes, “the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poet says apart from the words of the poem.” It is thus possible to learn more completely than before just where Mr. Tate stands, though the same principles have been set down at greater length in other of his writings, in the Reactionary Essays, and in some of the uncollected criticism.

Tate has been, and to a lesser extent still is, the most highly praised poet of his generation with the exception of Hart Crane. It is true that more recently he has had his share of condemnation, not only from the Left, but rather surprisingly, from what one would suppose to be congenial quarters. The preface to this book is partly at fault; the incomplete fulfillment of the promise of Poems 1928-1931, in the volume called The Mediterranean, especially in politics, has had its influence as well. The relatively large amount of excellence in the Poems proved somewhat misleading, and when The Mediterranean exhibited a number of failures, the obvious reaction was that Tate had already shot his bolt some years before. It has been pointed out by Cudworth Flint that there has not been much change in the poetry over a period of time (The Southern Review, Winter, 1936); in the same article Flint has made clear, as well as anyone, the particular problems and achievements of the poet.

Seeing the final selection of what Tate cares to retain from his three previous books, the critic is faced with a problem almost as difficult as that which the author has set up for himself. Tate has never been a prolific poet, and the ideals which he has held have always been rigorous in the extreme. The Selected Poems runs to a little over a hundred pages, not a large volume by any means. The relative distinction of the work is flattering. The poems are difficult, partly because of the great amount of specialized knowledge they contain, partly because of the language in which they are cast, though the first of these difficulties is not uncommon in much contemporary poetry. There are inevitably overtones to the poems, but the aim of the writer has been to make each poem its “own knower.” This is a high aim, and one which would prove disastrous for any poet to be completely subject to. One of the saving graces for Tate is that he has given in to some of his imperfections, letting them stand as they are; the “Ode to the Confederate Dead” is an excellent example; and the “Sonnets of the Blood” which are almost entirely new in the Selected Poems, may serve as an illustration of some of the dangers of too vigorous re-writing. In the present version they have lost, it seems to me, much of the brisk movement which was necessary for their effectiveness. (In any case, they are not, as Yvor Winters once somewhat carelessly, if learnedly, pointed out, “the most abominably written series of sonnets this side of Barnabe Barnes.”)

If then, there is little development, if the same faults which dogged Tate through Mr. Pope still dog him, and if he has not seemed to resolve much of his work to the perfection which he desires, what remains? First of all, and most important, some very fine poems in which the demands of the author have been met or nearly met, and a probity of mind which is rare enough in any writer. One may deplore the lack of “physicality,” as Kenneth Burke has rather loosely stated it; one may object to what politics are apparent; but one cannot overlook the meditations on the basic problems of life and death, even though he may disagree with some of the conclusions which Tate draws. Mortality is Tate's chief subject—not the past, as so many would have it—and mortality is important, and will be, even after a revolution has been accomplished. When, in “The Oath,” he writes:

Then Lytle asked: Who are the dead?
Who are the living and the dead? …
.....I thought I heard the dark pounding its head
On a rock crying: Who are the dead?
Then Lytle turned with an oath—By God, it's true!

he is not thinking in universals, he is thinking of himself. In the preface he writes, “The poet as seer who experiences life in behalf of the population is a picture that is not clear in my mind, but it is an interesting picture; it happens to be one with which I have no sympathy at all.” This may, perhaps, be old-fashioned. Emerson's idea of the poet seems to be returning in full regalia.

Nevertheless, Tate includes here his long argumentative poems, “Fragment of a Meditation” and “Causerie,” and some of the shorter ones, “Aeneas at Washington,” “The Meaning of Life,” “To the Lacedemonians,” and others, almost in contradiction to his statement. But he is worth listening to, and worth attention. Prejudice is the demon that upsets the applecart, and not mere superstition. It is every man's fault. And in spite of prejudice, Tate is the author of The Mediterranean, “The Cross,” “The Twelve,” “Emblems,” “The Subway,” “Mother and Son,” Sonnets at Christmas, “Shadow and Shade,” “Pastoral,” “The Ode to the Confederate Dead,” and “The Eagle,” with a number of other fine passages. This is more than adequate return for his labor. In “Ditty” he writes:

Men will plunge, mile after mile of men,
To crush this lucent madness of the face,
Go home and put their heads upon the pillow,
Turn with whatever shift the darkness cleaves,
Tuck in their eyes, and cover
The flying dark with sleep like falling leaves.

This is not the peace that passes understanding. Melville said, “The only true infidelity is for a live man to declare himself dead.” Tate has been accused of the infidelity, but if one recalls “The Wolves,” the accusation fails.