Donald Hall Criticism
Donald Hall (1928–2018) was a multifaceted American literary figure renowned for his contributions across various genres, including poetry, prose, and literary criticism. His career reflects a thematic focus on nostalgia, mortality, and the cyclical nature of life, often drawing from personal experience and everyday life. Hall's work embodies a deep engagement with these themes, making him a significant figure in contemporary American literature. His poetry ranges from epic reflections on life's meaning, such as in The One Day, which Frederick Pollack praised as possibly the last masterpiece of American Modernism, to the intensely personal and emotional, as seen in Without, a collection reflecting on grief with a poignant yet unsentimental touch, noted by Leslie Ullman. Hall's exploration of personal and familial themes continues in works like Kicking the Leaves, where Richard Nalley and Guy Davenport highlight his warm and accessible style in contrast to more introspective contemporaries.
Hall's prose further solidifies his reputation as an insightful "Man of Letters," with works such as Remembering Poets offering personal anecdotes and reflections. Irvin Ehrenpreis recognized these strengths while critiquing the focus on biographical elements over critical insights into poetry. His essays and interviews, like those with Liam Rector and George Myers Jr., showcase his continuous ambition and critical acumen, providing valuable insights into his spontaneous yet deliberate creative process. Hall's works, including Their Ancient Glittering Eyes, underscore his engagement with themes of nostalgia and nature, resonating with a broad audience and influencing contemporary literary discourse.
While Hall's poetry often evokes a sense of nostalgia for lost virtues and values, his collection A Blue Wing Tilts at the Edge of the Sea has been critiqued by Roger Garfitt for its blend of genuine emotion and occasional sentimentality, with its strengths particularly noted in the opening and closing sections. His ability to intertwine personal narrative with broader, universal themes is evident throughout his body of work, solidifying his legacy in American literature. Readers are encouraged to explore the depth of his scholarship and the breadth of his literary output, which continues to offer profound insights into the complexities of life and art.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Hall, Donald (Vol. 151)
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Donald Hall: An Interview by Liam Rector
(summary)
In the following interview, Hall discusses his literary career, the contrast between suburban and rural cultures, his experiences at various educational institutions, and the evolution of his poetic works, revealing insights into his creative process, personal history, and views on contemporary poetry.
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The Ideal Bakery
(summary)
In the following review, Christopherson offers a positive assessment of The Ideal Bakery, calling Hall “one of contemporary literature's gourmet chefs.” The characters in Donald Hall's first collection of short stories, The Ideal Bakery, are mainstream, and their plights are all too recognizable: a divorced father trying to get back in touch with his bookish nine-year-old during a weekend fishing trip; a middle-aged professor trying to rekindle a relationship with an embittered former lover; a graduate student of literature whose stationery-store-proprietor husband will never be the romantic she dreams of. But that is not to say the stories are common. On the contrary, Hall shows uncommon sensitivity in treating themes like loneliness, loss, and the erosion—or demolition—of innocence by experience.
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Donald Hall's The One Day
(summary)
In the following review, Pollack offers a positive assessment of The One Day and classifies the poem as a modernist work.
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Keeping the World Going
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Looney offers a positive assessment of The One Day, complimenting the poem for its sense of wonder and beauty.
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An Interview with Donald Hall about The One Day
(summary)
In the following interview, Hall and Myers explore the sixteen-year creative process behind Hall's poem The One Day, emphasizing the spontaneous and often unconscious nature of Hall's composition, where ideas flow like dictation and are later shaped through critical attention and structured form.
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Donald Hall's Old and New Poems
(summary)
In the following essay, Joseph explores how Old and New Poems is an example of how Hall's poetry has evolved throughout the years and how the collection relates to the genre of American Modernist poetry.
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Their Ancient Glittering Eyes: Remembering Poets and More Poets
(summary)
In the following review, the critic offers a positive assessment of Their Ancient Glittering Eyes. The review highlights poet and critic Hall's distinguished gallery of poets and provides insights into their personalities, particularly focusing on Frost, Eliot, and Pound, while emphasizing Hall's respectful and sympathetic voice.
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A Poke Over the Wall
(summary)
In the following positive review, Keen argues that The Museum of Clear Ideas is primarily about how humans cope with endings and issues of closure.
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The High Pasture
(summary)
In the following review, Sherry offers a positive assessment of both Life Work and The Museum of Clear Ideas.
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Lucy's Summer
(summary)
In the following positive review, Schott commends Hall's ability to bring the past to life in Lucy's Summer. Lucy is the author's mother and this account of the events of the summer of 1910, Lucy's seventh, come from the stories she told about her childhood. Her mother started a home-based millinery business that summer but still had to can hundreds of jars of peas, beans, tomatoes, and rhubarb. The routine is broken by an itinerant photographer who takes a portrait of Lucy and her little sister, by the Fourth of July parade, and by a trip to Boston, where Mother buys supplies for her hats.
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Life Work
(summary)
In the following review, Thorpe offers a mixed assessment of Life Work, faulting the work for indulging in too much “name-dropping.”
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Proseurs
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Gwynn criticizes Hall's use of publishing sales figures to defend modern poetry in Death to the Death of Poetry.
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The Harvard Advocate
(summary)
In the following review, Goldstein assesses three examples of Hall's nonfiction works—Principal Products of Portugal, Death to the Death of Poetry, and Life Work—and explores what these works reveal about his poetry.
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‘Building the House of Dying’: Donald Hall's Claim for Poetry
(summary)
In the following essay, Walsh discusses the role of history and modernity in The One Day.
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Donald Hall: Elegies from Eagle Pond
(summary)
In the following interview, Donald Hall with Michael Scharf discusses Hall's poetry collection Without, which chronicles the profound grief and enduring love following the death of his wife, Jane Kenyon, exploring themes of loss, memory, and artistic creation within the context of their life together at Eagle Pond Farm.
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The Way We Write Now
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Bayley discusses Hall's exploration of grief in Without.
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With Jane and Without: An Interview with Donald Hall
(summary)
In the following interview, Hall and Cramer explore Hall's emotional journey after the death of his wife, Jane Kenyon, delving into their shared life at Eagle Pond Farm, their literary collaboration, and the enduring impact of their relationship on Hall's creative process.
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Expansive Poetry
(summary)
In the following excerpt, McDowell argues that Without is an example of expansive poetry and lacks the sentimentality one might expect from the emotional subject matter.
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Without
(summary)
In the following positive review, Ullman compliments Hall's candor and his ability to put his grief into words in Without. Grief's soundings—their depth and intricacy—arise from Donald Hall's thirteenth poetry collection as naturally as mist over water, even as they also provide the harshness from which the book takes its form. Without is described by the publisher as “a companion volume” to Hall's most recent collection, The Old Life, which also is autobiographical but covers a greater territory of Hall's life up to the present and offers names, events, and gossipy or literary recollections that might appeal to a reader of biography as well as poetry.
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How to Peel a Poem: Five Poets Dine Out on Verse
(summary)
In the following roundtable discussion, poets Hall, Cynthia Huntington, Heather McHugh, Paul Muldoon, and Charles Simic discuss their favorite poems and what makes them special.
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Donald Hall: An Interview by Liam Rector
(summary)
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Plurality of Worlds
(summary)
In the following essay, Phoebe Pettingell praises Donald Hall's collection "The Yellow Room," noting his adept use of surrealism and the emotional depth achieved in his depiction of personal experiences of love and loss.
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Hall, Donald (Vol. 13)
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Roger Garfitt
(summary)
The essay critiques Donald Hall's A Blue Wing Tilts at the Edge of the Sea, noting that while some poems capture genuine emotion and inventive imagery, others falter due to excessive sentimentality and exploitation of mature love's ironies, with the collection's strength residing in its opening and closing sections.
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Richard Nalley
(summary)
In the following essay, Richard Nalley contends that Donald Hall's Kicking the Leaves reflects a vulnerable exploration of personal and familial themes, particularly mortality and nostalgia, using accessible language to evoke warmth and sentimentality rather than the intense introspection found in works by contemporaries like Robert Lowell and Philip Levine.
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Irvin Ehrenpreis
(summary)
In the following essay, Irvin Ehrenpreis critiques Donald Hall's Remembering Poets for its engaging anecdotes and personal honesty while noting its limitations in providing profound critical insights into the poetry of Hall's subjects, emphasizing Hall's focus on biography over compelling analysis of poetic works.
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New Hampshire Elegies
(summary)
In the following essay, Guy Davenport examines Donald Hall's collection "Kicking the Leaves," highlighting its elegiac tone and exploration of themes such as death, the brevity of life, and the inherent violence in survival, while praising Hall's plain, honest style and the work's reflection on middle age and life's fragility.
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Roger Garfitt
(summary)
- Further Reading