Reviews for Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson 1834 to 1872, Vol. 1

The average rating for Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson 1834 to 1872, Vol. 1 based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-05-05 00:00:00 Nils Lommerin What do Beat Poets discuss in their private correspondence? Judging from these letters, that stretch over four decades, they make plans to meet up that more often than not don't work out; they talk about the property they own jointly and its expenses; they talk about which Zen master they are currently working with; and, in the case of Ginsburg, they describe their hellacious schedule of readings, workshops, and teaching engagements. And at no point, that I can remember, does either of these men show any particular sense of humor or the ability to casually gossip about the circles they move in. (Snyder doesn't exactly "move in a circle." He stays put in the foothills of the Sierras and lets the circles come to him.) I am not saying that I think Snyder and Ginsburg should write like Truman Capote or Tennessee Williams, but I was struck after the first 100 pages or so by just how mundane their correspondence was. The project to get a deck built on Ginsburg's cabin in California stretches over several years. And while they mention what is going on with family and friends -- whether Peter Orlovsky is in or out of rehab, how much is Gregory Corso drinking -- they never seem to be opening up to one another. This book has almost no annotations, and it should be read alongside a Ginsburg biography, which is something I haven't read. And if the correspondence is short of personal revelations, you do get a sense of how their respective careers develop. Early on, Ginsburg mentions that another 10,000 copies of Howl have sold and he is expecting a $200 check that will more or less fund his stay in India. Throughout the 1970's they have building expenses under a couple of hundred dollars per project.t. But towards then end, Snyder mentions that his teaching position at UC Davis will bring in $70,000 per annum, and Ginsburg has sold papers to Stanford for a million.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-06-01 00:00:00 Charlotte Coler-Lindstrom Poetry is by its nature elevated language. No matter how we try to drag it down to earth with flarf or cutups, Dada Bestiality or computer-generated randomness, by framing it with a page we exalt, indeed capture the choices we've made. And this is what I love about the vanishing art of letter writing. The same choices are made but it's casual and personal--at least in a close relationship. Out of all the beat poets, Ginsberg and Snyder were perhaps the best known and the most politically active. Indeed, these concerns are often expressed in their epistles. Snyder book the Back Country was the first book of poems I dived into, and I consider Howl as perhaps the greatest single poem of the post-war years, so I have my biases, but most of all I just enjoy the personal touch, the directness and groundedness of these letters.