POET

Anthony Hecht (1923 - 2004)

BIOGRAPHY

For a contemporary poet, Anthony Hecht is unusually absorbed by old forms and language. "If there is a genteel tradition in American poetry, Mr. Hecht is commonly supposed to belong to it," noted Denis Donoghue in the New York Times Book Review, and George P. Elliott contended in the Times Literary Supplement that "Hecht's voice is his own, but his language, more amply than that of any living poet writing in English, derives from, adds to, is part of the great tradition." According to Michael Dirda in the Washington Post Book World, Hecht's stylistic progenitors, "subtly acknowledged" in his work, "are those reflective and witty poets of the compressed and sensual, chief among whom are Horace, La Fontaine, Pope, Byron, Baudelaire, the early Eliot and Stevens."

Reviewing his first collection of poetry, A Summoning of Stones, critics often commented on Hecht's ornate style. Joseph Bennett wrote in the Hudson Review: "A Baroque exuberance in the medium characterizes Hecht's poetry; the words whirl and perform their curves. . . . This sets the dominant tone, the individual note of Hecht's writing. Echoes of Stevens at the beginning of the poem give way to language considered purely for itself." R. W. Flint also noted the influence of poets from another age, suggesting in Partisan Review that "Hecht belongs to the courtly tradition." For some critics, Hecht's style seems mannered and dated. Donald Davie wrote in Shenandoah that "the poems are full of erudite and cosmopolitan references, epigraphs from Moliere and so on; and the diction is recherche, opulent, laced with the sort of wit that costs nothing. Here and there too the poet knowingly invites what some reviewers have duly responded with, the modish epithet 'Baroque.' But . . . the right word [to describe his style] is the much less fashionable 'Victorian.'"

Hecht's style changes strikingly in his collection The Hard Hours, according to Laurence Lieberman in the Yale Review. "In contrast with the ornate style of many of Hecht's earlier poems," wrote Lieberman, "the new work is characterized by starkly undecorative—and unpretentious—writing." Elliott felt that the change in Hecht's approach signals new depth in his work. "One measure of Hecht's maturing as a poet," wrote Elliott, "is in his skill at handling the ornaments of poetry. His youthful verse, in A Summoning of Stones, [was less successful: it] fed off poetry, skillfully and even handsomely, far more than off experience or felt thought."

Donoghue felt that Hecht continues retrenching in Millions of Strange Shadows. "Effects of diction no longer call attention to themselves," he asserted. Steven Madoff, writing in Nation, disagreed. He conceded that The Hard Hours "carries within it a stylistic progression from an early adjectival overabundance to a highly wrought simplicity of tone and directness of vision." But he pointed out evidence of Hecht's rekindled interest in complexity in Millions of Strange Shadows. According to Madoff, Hecht is much like Wallace Stevens in his interest in music "as a medium and transcendent force," and he is especially influenced by "the melodic intricacy of expression, and the expansive discourse that is propelled through its argument as much by the perfection of the words' sound as by the thesis that they construct" in Stevens's writing. Unfortunately, said Madoff, "the complexity of this marriage [of sound and meaning] makes for a certain inscrutability."

In the collection The Venetian Vespers, too, Christopher Ricks noted an obliqueness in Hecht's approach. Ricks wrote in the New York Times Book Review: "Hecht's latest work . . . returns to a language that is not directly transparent (and that repeatedly speaks explicitly of brilliance, polish and scintillation) but that draws attention to itself." Still, Ricks felt that the collection succeeds because Hecht has "genius in his command of rhythms, above all, where an imagined self-command falters and yet does not break. One would need his powers of economy to get far enough in praise." Michael Dirda added his recommendation to Ricks's: "To my mind and ear, Hecht's . . . The Venetian Vespers . . . demonstrates again that he may be the most accomplished master of technique since Auden. The verse is musical, the diction precisely nuanced, the syntax smooth and conversational. There is never a jarring line, never a word out of place; everything fits together with the inevitable rightness of the classical poet."

In his collection The Transparent Man, the poet offers elegies, lyrics, and longer dramatic monologues centered around European urban life and containing his trademark formal structure, lyrical beauty, and dark thematic concerns. "The beauty of his language . . . is stilled by the horror of knowledge, and that infection redeems many poems that would have been perfumed into prettiness," remarked William Logan in the New York Times Book Review. While praising the collection overall, Logan felt that the dramatic monologues "lack the stress of structure" and are the weakest part of the collection. Washington Post Book World contributor Thomas M. Disch noted in particular the collection's elegies, which he called "quietly, sublimely beyond all praise." Concluded Logan, "'The Transparent Man' is a strange, gorgeously moody, occasionally imperfect . . . collection."

Hecht's Flight among the Tombs takes death as its central theme, with the first section of this two-part book being entirely devoted to portraits of death in various forms. The second section contains poems on various subjects, including deceased fellow-poets Joseph Brodsky and James Merrill, and "death haunts those pages" as well, even when it is not the central theme, according to Booklist reviewer Donna Seaman. John Taylor, a contributor to Poetry, found that in Flight among the Tombs, "Hecht's formal mastery is of the highest order. Priceless lessons can be learned: the way a skillful poet manipulates a variety of traditional forms (including the ever-tricky villanelle), the naturalness of his meters and rhymes, his bold displays of consonance. . . . his concision, his descriptive powers."

The Darkness and the Light is full of weighty themes, mainly war and the shadowy side of love. Yet even with such difficult subjects, Hecht's "exceptional" verse is "refreshing and liberating," and "possesses a quality that transcends both time and space," commented Tim Gavin in Library Journal. Some reviewers found that in this collection, the poet's work was less formally perfect than his past work; but to some, such as New Criterion writer William Logan, this only makes the verses more emotionally accessible. "The moody valedictory poems of The Darkness and the Light are more ravaged and humane than any Hecht has written," remarked Logan. Previously, "if his poems were flawed, it was because they were unyielding to the emotions they evoked: they preached vulnerability while remaining invulnerable. Their very precisions left no room for the ambivalence necessary to strong feeling." In The Darkness and the Light, Logan claimed, there is a "loosening of control" that "has made Hecht a warmer, more sympathetic poet," even if he has "lost the fine clinch of his endings, the darkening necessities of his arguments."

In addition to his poetry, Hecht has produced volumes of literary criticism. Obbligati, for instance, contains critical essays written between 1962 and 1986. The essays discuss the poetry of numerous American poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, and Emily Dickinson, as well as topics such as interpreting William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. "These are essays presented in opposition to what Mr. Hecht takes to be the egocentrism of contemporary criticism," commented Louis Menand in the New York Times Book Review. Unlike the post modern tendencies of many contemporary literary critics, who impose theoretical constructions on a text in order to analyze it, Hecht harkens back to an earlier view of literary criticism by placing the text itself, rather than any theory, at the center of critical discussion. For example, in his critical work about W. H. Auden's poetry titled The Hidden Law, "Hecht's criticism originates less from a critical orthodoxy than from the admiration of a working poet," noted Sidney Burris in the Southern Review. Daria Donnelly in Commonweal called The Hidden Law "fascinating," and felt that "Hecht interprets Auden's poetry with enormous intelligence and attention." Likewise, Agenda contributor Peter Mudford declared that "the book is characterised by an openness and receptiveness of mind which by no means always goes with extensive knowledge." Burris concluded that Hecht "has the invigorating ability to contextualize Auden's work within the culture that produced it, and he does so with a clarity that is rare in contemporary criticism."

Another volume that displays Hecht's approach to literary criticism is On the Laws of the Poetic Art, which contains the six lectures Hecht gave at the National Gallery of Art in 1992 as part of that institution's Andrew Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. In discussions about poetry and art, Hecht defends his traditionalist view of poetry by championing formal structure and a language based on natural discourse rather than on archaic patterns. Logan, this time writing in the Washington Post Book World, felt that the volume's "manner is so often professorial and the prose occasionally so flyblown" that the book suffers as a result. But Sewanee Review contributor Robert Beum observed, "The six lectures delighted the National Gallery of Art audiences, and among those likely to read them in their printed form only the cranks and pedants of personal or social revolution . . . will fail to be pleased." Beum concluded, "Here . . . is that rarity in American criticism—inarguable truth memorably presented."

CAREER

Has taught at Kenyon College, State University of Iowa, New York University, Smith College, and Washington University; Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, associate professor of English, 1962-67; University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, John H. Deane Professor of Poetry and Rhetoric, 1967-85; Georgetown University, Washington, DC, university professor, 1985-93. Visiting professor, Harvard University, 1973, and Yale University, 1977. Consultant in poetry to Library of Congress, 1982-84; trustee, American Academy, Rome, beginning 1983; Andrew Mellon lecturer in the fine arts, National Gallery of Art, 1992; Rockefeller Foundation resident, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy, 1993. Military service: U.S. Army, three years; served in Europe and Japan; temporary duty with Counter-Intelligence Corps.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Summoning of Stones, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1954.
The Seven Deadly Sins (pamphlet; includes wood engravings by Leonard Baskin), Gehenna Press (Rockport, ME), 1958.
Struwwelpeter, a Poem, Gehenna Press (Rockport, ME), 1958.
(Editor, with John Hollander) Jiggery-Pokery: A Compendium of Double Dactyls, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1967.
The Hard Hours, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1967.
Aesopic (couplets; includes wood engravings by Thomas Bewick), Gehenna Press (Rockport, ME), 1968.
(Translator, with Helen Bacon) Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1973.
Millions of Strange Shadows, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1977.
The Venetian Vespers, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1977.
Robert Lowell: A Lecture Delivered at the Library of Congress on May 2, 1983, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1983.
A Love for Four Voices: Homage to Franz Joseph Haydn, Mandeville (Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England), 1983.
The Pathetic Fallacy: A Lecture Delivered at the Library of Congress on May 7, 1984, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1985.
Obbligati: Essays in Criticism, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1986.
(Editor) The Essential Herbert, Ecco (New York, NY), 1987.
The Transparent Man, Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.
Collected Earlier Poems (contains The Hard Hours, Millions of Strange Shadows, and The Venetian Vespers), Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.
The Hidden Law: The Poetry of W. H. Auden, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1993.
Death Sauntering About, Friends of the Amherst College Library (Amherst, MA), 1994.
The Presumptions of Death, Gehenna Press (Rockport, ME), 1995.
On the Laws of the Poetic Art, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1995.
Flight among the Tombs: Poems, Knopf (New York, NY), 1996.
(Editor, with G. Blakemore Evans) William Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.
The Gehenna Florilegium, Gehenna Press (Rockport, ME), 1998.
(With Philip Hoy) Anthony Hecht: In Conversation with Philip Hoy, Between the Lines (London, England), 1999.
The Darkness and the Light, Knopf (New York, NY), 2001.

Also translator with William Arrowsmith of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colossus. Poems included in New Pocket Anthology of American Verse, edited by Oscar Williams, World Publishing, 1955, Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Donald Hall, Penguin, 1962, Poet's Choice, edited by Paul Engle and Joseph Langland, Dial, 1962, A Controversy of Poets, edited by Paris Leary and Robert Kelly, Doubleday-Anchor, 1965, Poems of Our Moment, edited by John Hollander, Pegasus, 1968, and in other anthologies. Contributor to sound recordings, including The 1987 Consultants' Reunion, A Sixtieth-Anniversary Reading, and Academy of American Poets Fiftieth-Anniversary Celebration. Has done translations from French and German. Contributor to Hudson Review, New York Review of Books, Quarterly Review of Literature, Transatlantic Review, and Voices.