Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics promotes and pursues topics in the burgeoning field of twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetics. Critical and scholarly work on poetry and poetics of interest to the series includes social location in its relationships to subjectivity, to the construction of authorship, to oeuvres, and to careers; poetic reception and dissemination (groups, movements, formations, institutions); the intersection of poetry and theory; ques- tions about language, poetic authority, and the goals of writing; claims in poetics, impacts of social life, and the dynamics of the poetic career as these are staged and debated by poets and inside poems. Topics that are bibliographic, pedagogic, that concern the social field of poetry, and reflect on the history of poetry studies are valued as well. This series focuses both on individual poets and texts and on larger movements, poetic institutions, and questions about poetic authority, social identifications, and aesthetics. Language and the Renewal of Society in Walt Whitman, Laura (Riding) Jackson, and Charles Olson The American Cratylus Carla Billitteri Modernism and Poetic Inspiration The Shadow Mouth Jed Rasula The Social Life of Poetry Appalachia, Race, and Radical Modernism Chris Green Procedural Form in Postmodern American Poetry Berrigan, Antin, Silliman, and Hejinian David W. Huntsperger Modernist Writings and Religio-scientific Discourse H. D., Loy, and Toomer Lara Vetter Male Subjectivity and Poetic Form in “New American” Poetry Andrew Mossin The Poetry of Susan Howe History, Theology, Authority Will Montgomery Ronald Johnson’s Modernist Collage Poetry Ross Hair Pastoral, Pragmatism, and Twentieth-Century American Poetry Ann Marie Mikkelsen (Re:)Working the Ground Essays on the Late Writings of Robert Duncan edited by James Maynard Women’s Poetry and Popular Culture Marsha Bryant Poetry after the Invention of América Don’t Light the Flower Andrés Ajens, translated by Michelle Gil-Montero, introduction by Erin Moure and Forrest Gander New York School Collaborations The Color of Vowels edited by Mark Silverberg The Poetics of the American Suburbs By Jo Gill The Afro-Modernist Epic and Literary History Tolson, Hughes, Baraka Kathy Lou Schultz Delmore Schwartz A Critical Reassessment By Alex Runchman The Poetics of Waste (forthcoming) Queer Excess in Stein, Ashbery, Schuyler, and Goldsmith By Christopher Schmidt Delmore Schwartz A Critical Reassessment Alex Runchman delmore schwartz Copyright © Alex Runchman, 2014. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-39437-8 All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–1–349–48390–7 ISBN 978–1–137–39438–5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137394385 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Runchman, Alex, 1981– Delmore Schwartz : a critical reassessment / Alex Runchman. pages cm. — (Modern and contemporary poetry and poetics) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Schwartz, Delmore, 1913–1966—Criticism and interpretation. 2. American poetry—Jewish authors—History and criticism. I. Title. PS3537.C79Z86 2014 8119.52—dc23 2013046410 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: May 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Joanne: “animula, vagula, blandula” This page intentionally left blank Contents Permissions ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 1 “The Greatest Thing in North America”: “International Consciousness” or “The Isolation of Modern Poetry?” 11 2 In Dreams Begin Responsibilities: “The Egocentric Predicament” 39 3 “The Land of the Old World Failure and the New World Success”: Genesis and “America! America!” 67 4 “An Innocent Bystander”: The City, Vaudeville for a Princess, and Schwartz’s Postwar Cultural Criticism 95 5 Summer Knowledge: “Infinite Belief in Infinite Hope” 121 Conclusion 145 Notes 151 Bibliography 169 Index 181 This page intentionally left blank Permissions Excerpts from poems and stories by Delmore Schwartz, includ- ing unpublished material from the Delmore Schwartz Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, reprinted by permission of Robert Phillips, executor of The Estate of Delmore Schwartz. By Delmore Schwartz, from Genesis Book I, copyright ©1943 by Delmore Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. By Delmore Schwartz, from In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, copyright © 1937 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. By Delmore Schwartz, from Last and Lost Poems, copyright © 1979, 1989 by Kenneth Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. By Delmore Schwartz, from Selected Poems, copyright © 1959 by Delmore Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. By Delmore Schwartz, from The World Is a Wedding, copyright © 1948 by Delmore Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. By Delmore Schwartz, from Vaudeville for a Princess, copyright © 1950 by Delmore Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. By Delmore Schwartz, from In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, and Other Stories, copyright © 2003 by Delmore Schwartz. Reprinted for terrestrial circulation within the UK and British Commonwealth by permission of Souvenir Press Ltd. An excerpt from “All Gone into the Dark” by Charles Simic in London Review of Books, September 9, 2010, by permission of the author.