And when, in earth’s forgotten moment, I
Unbound the cord to which the soul was bound …
Any poem, on the other hand, ending with “And how” comes under the head of light verse, written by a minor poet. Following are the last two lines of a “light” poem, instantly identifiable by the terminal phrase:
Placing his lips against her brow
He kissed her eyelids shut. And how.
All poems of the latter type are what I call “light by degrees”—that is, they bear evidences of having once been serious, but the last line has been altered. The above couplet, for example, was unquestionably part of a serious poem which the poet wrote in 1916 while at Dartmouth, and originally ended:
Placing his lips against her brow
He kissed her eyelids shut enow.
It took fourteen years of knocking around the world before he saw how the last line could be revised to make the poem suitable for publication.
WHILE the subject matter of a poem does not always enable the reader to classify it, he can often pick up a strong clue. Suppose, for instance, you were to run across a poem beginning:
When I went down to the corner grocer
He asked would I like a bottle of Welch’s grape juice
And I said, “No, Sir.”
You will know that it is a minor poem because it deals with a trade-marked product. If the poem continues in this vein:
“Then how would you like a package of Jello,
A can of Del Monte peaches, some Grape Nuts,
And a box of Rinso—
Or don’t you thin’ so?”
you may be reasonably sure not only that the verse is “light” verse but that the poet has established some good contacts and is getting along nicely.
And now we come to the use of the word “rue” as a noun. All poems containing the word “rue” as a noun are serious. This word, rhyming as it does with “you,” “true,” “parvenu,” “emu,” “cock-a-doodle-doo,” and thousands of other words, and occupying as it does a distinguished place among nouns whose meaning is just a shade unclear to most people—this word, I say, is the sort without which a major poet could not struggle along. It is the hallmark of serious verse. No minor poet dares use it, because his very minority carries with it the obligation to be a little more explicit. There are times when he would like to use “rue,” as, for instance, when he is composing a poem in the A. E. Housman manner:
When drums were heard in Pelham,
The soldier’s eyes were blue,
But I came back through Scarsdale,
And oh the …
Here the poet would like to get in the word “rue” because it has the right sound, but he doesn’t dare.
SO much for the character of the verse. Here are a few general rules about the poets themselves. All poets who, when reading from their own works, experience a choked feeling, are major. For that matter, all poets who read from their own works are major, whether they choke or not. All women poets, dead or alive, who smoke cigars are major. All poets who have sold a sonnet for $125 to a magazine with a paid circulation of four hundred thousand are major. A sonnet is composed of fourteen lines; thus the payment in this case is eight dollars and ninety-three cents a line, which constitutes a poet’s majority. (It also indicates that the editor has probably been swept off his feet.)
All poets whose work appears in “The Conning Tower” of the World are minor, because the World is printed on uncoated stock—which is offensive to major poets. All poets named Edna St. Vincent Millay are major.
All poets who submit their manuscripts through an agent are major. These manuscripts are instantly recognized as serious verse. They come enclosed in a manila folder accompanied by a letter from the agent: “Dear Mr.——: Here is a new group of Miss McGroin’s poems, called ‘Seven Poems.’ We think they are the most important she has done yet, and hope you will like them as much as we do.” Such letters make it a comparatively simple matter for an editor to distinguish between serious and light verse, because of the word “important.”
Incidentally, letters from poets who submit their work directly to a publication without the help of an agent are less indicative but are longer. Usually they are intimate, breezy affairs, that begin by referring to some previously rejected poem that the editor has forgotten about. They begin: “Dear Mr. ——: Thanks so much for your friendly note. I have read over ‘Invulnerable’ and I think I see your point, although in line 8 the word ‘hernia’ is, I insist, the only word to quite express the mood. At any rate, here are two new offerings. ‘Thrush-Bound’ and ‘The Hill,’ both of which are rather timely. I suppose you know that Vivien and I have rented the most amusing wee house near the outskirts of Sharon—it used to be a well-house and the well still takes up most of the living room. We are as poor as church mice but Vivien says, etc., etc.”
A poet who, in a roomful of people, is noticeably keeping at a little distance and “seeing into” things is a major poet. This poet commonly writes in unrhymed six-foot and seven-foot verse, beginning something like this:
When, once, finding myself alone in a gathering of people,
I stood, a little apart, and through the endless confusion of voices …
This is a major poem and you needn’t give it a second thought.
THERE are many more ways of telling a major poet from a minor poet, but I think I have covered the principal ones. The truth is, it is fairly easy to tell the two types apart; it is only when one sets about trying to decide whether what they write is any good or not that the thing really becomes complicated.
1930
WOODY ALLEN
THE METTERLING LISTS
VENAL & Sons has at last published the long-awaited first volume of Metterling’s laundry lists (The Collected Laundry Lists of Hans Metterling, Vol. I, 437 pp., plus xxxii-page introduction; indexed; $18.75), with an erudite commentary by the noted Metterling scholar Gunther Eisenbud. The decision to publish this work separately, before the completion of the immense four-volume oeuvre, is both welcome and intelligent, for this obdurate and sparkling book will instantly lay to rest the unpleasant rumors that Venal & Sons, having reaped rich rewards from the Metterling novels, play, and notebooks, diaries, and letters, was merely in search of continued profits from the same lode. How wrong the whisperers have been! Indeed, the very first Metterling laundry list
LIST NO. 1
6 prs. shorts
4 undershirts
6 prs. blue socks
4 blue shirts
2 white shirts
6 handkerchiefs
No Starch
serves as a perfect, near-total introduction to this troubled genius, known to his contemporaries as the “Prague Weirdo.” The list was dashed off while Metterling was writing Confessions of a Monstrous Cheese, that work of stunning philosophical import in which he proved not only that Kant was wrong about the universe but that he never picked up a check. Metterling’s dislike of starch is typical of the period, and when this particular bundle came back too stiff Metterling became moody and depressed. His landlady, Frau Weiser, reported to friends that “Herr Metterling keeps to his room for days, weeping over the fact that they have starched his shorts.” Of course, Breuer has already pointed out the relation between stiff underwear and Metterling’s constant feeling that he was being whispered about by men with jowls (Metterling: Paranoid-Depressive Psychosis and the Early Lists, Zeiss Press). This theme of a failure to follow instructions appears in Metterling’s only play, Asthma, when Needleman brings the cursed tennis ball to Valhalla by mistake.
The obvious enigma of the second list
LIST NO. 2
7 prs. shorts
5 undershirts
7 prs. black socks
6 blue shirts
6 handkerchiefs
No Starch
is the seven pairs of black socks, since it has been long known that Metterling was deeply fond of blue. Indeed, for years the mention of any oth
er color would send him into a rage, and he once pushed Rilke down into some honey because the poet said he preferred brown-eyed women. According to Anna Freud (“Metterling’s Socks as an Expression of the Phallic Mother,” Journal of Psychoanalysis, Nov., 1935), his sudden shift to the more somber legwear is related to his unhappiness over the “Bayreuth Incident.” It was there, during the first act of Tristan, that he sneezed, blowing the toupee off one of the opera’s wealthiest patrons. The audience became convulsed, but Wagner defended him with his now classic remark “Everybody sneezes.” At this, Cosima Wagner burst into tears and accused Metterling of sabotaging her husband’s work.
That Metterling had designs on Cosima Wagner is undoubtedly true, and we know he took her hand once in Leipzig and again, four years later, in the Ruhr Valley. In Danzig, he referred to her tibia obliquely during a rainstorm, and she thought it best not to see him again. Returning to his home in a state of exhaustion, Metterling wrote Thoughts of a Chicken, and dedicated the original manuscript to the Wagners. When they used it to prop up the short leg of a kitchen table, Metterling became sullen and switched to dark socks. His housekeeper pleaded with him to retain his beloved blue or at least to try brown, but Metterling cursed her, saying, “Slut! And why not Argyles, eh?”
In the third list
LIST NO. 3
6 handkerchiefs
5 undershirts
8 prs. socks
3 bedsheets
2 pillowcases
linens are mentioned for the first time. Metterling had a great fondness for linens, particularly pillowcases, which he and his sister, as children, used to put over their heads while playing ghosts, until one day he fell into a rock quarry. Metterling liked to sleep on fresh linen, and so do his fictional creations. Horst Wasserman, the impotent locksmith in Filet of Herring, kills for a change of sheets, and Jenny, in The Shepherd’s Finger, is willing to go to bed with Klineman (whom she hates for rubbing butter on her mother) “if it means lying between soft sheets.” It is a tragedy that the laundry never did the linens to Metterling’s satisfaction, but to contend, as Pfaltz has done, that his consternation over it prevented him from finishing Whither Thou Goest, Cretin is absurd. Metterling enjoyed the luxury of sending his sheets out, but he was not dependent on it.
WHAT prevented Metterling from finishing his long-planned book of poetry was an abortive romance, which figures in the “Famous Fourth” list:
LIST NO. 4
7 prs. shorts
6 handkerchiefs
6 undershirts
7 prs. black socks
No Starch
Special One-Day Service
In 1884, Metterling met Lou Andreas-Salomé, and suddenly, we learn, he required that his laundry be done fresh daily. Actually, the two were introduced by Nietzsche, who told Lou that Metterling was either a genius or an idiot and to see if she could guess which. At that time, the special one-day service was becoming quite popular on the Continent, particularly with intellectuals, and the innovation was welcomed by Metterling. For one thing, it was prompt, and Metterling loved promptness. He was always showing up for appointments early—sometimes several days early, so that he would have to be put up in a guest room. Lou also loved fresh shipments of laundry every day. She was like a little child in her joy, often taking Metterling for walks in the woods and there unwrapping the latest bundle. She loved his undershirts and handkerchiefs, but most of all she worshipped his shorts. She wrote Nietzsche that Metterling’s shorts were the most sublime thing she had ever encountered, including Thus Spake Zarathustra. Nietzsche acted like a gentleman about it, but he was always jealous of Metterling’s underwear and told close friends he found it “Hegelian in the extreme.” Lou Salomé and Metterling parted company after the Great Treacle Famine of 1886, and while Metterling forgave Lou, she always said of him that “his mind had hospital corners.” The fifth list
LIST NO. 5
6 undershirts
6 shorts
6 handkerchiefs
has always puzzled scholars, principally because of the total absence of socks. (Indeed, Thomas Mann, writing years later, became so engrossed with the problem he wrote an entire play about it, The Hosiery of Moses, which he accidentally dropped down a grating.) Why did this literary giant suddenly strike socks from his weekly list? Not, as some scholars say, as a sign of his oncoming madness, although Metterling had by now adopted certain odd behavior traits. For one thing, he believed that he was either being followed or was following somebody. He told close friends of a government plot to steal his chin, and once, on holiday in Jena, he could not say anything but the word “eggplant” for four straight days. Still, these seizures were sporadic and do not account for the missing socks. Nor does his emulation of Kafka, who for a brief period of his life stopped wearing socks, out of guilt. But Eisenbud assures us that Metterling continued to wear socks. He merely stopped sending them to the laundry! And why? Because at this time in his life he acquired a new housekeeper, Frau Milner, who consented to do his socks by hand—a gesture that so moved Metterling that he left the woman his entire fortune, which consisted of a black hat and some tobacco. She also appears as Hilda in his comic allegory, Mother Brandt’s Ichor.
Obviously, Metterling’s personality had begun to fragment by 1894, if we can deduce anything from the sixth list:
LIST NO. 6
25 handkerchiefs
1 undershirt
5 shorts
1 sock
and it is not surprising to learn that it was at this time he entered analysis with Freud. He had met Freud years before in Vienna, when they both attended a production of Oedipus, from which Freud had to be carried out in a cold sweat. Their sessions were stormy, if we are to believe Freud’s notes, and Metterling was hostile. He once threatened to starch Freud’s beard and often said he reminded him of his laundryman. Gradually, Metterling’s unusual relationship with his father came out. (Students of Metterling are already familiar with his father, a petty official who would frequently ridicule Metterling by comparing him to a wurst.) Freud writes of a key dream Metterling described to him:
I am at a dinner party with some friends when suddenly a man walks in with a bowl of soup on a leash. He accuses my underwear of treason, and when a lady defends me her forehead falls off. I find this amusing in the dream, and laugh. Soon everyone is laughing except my laundryman, who seems stern and sits there putting porridge in his ears. My father enters, grabs the lady’s forehead, and runs away with it. He races to a public square, yelling, “At last! At last! A forehead of my own! Now I won’t have to rely on that stupid son of mine.” This depresses me in the dream, and I am seized with an urge to kiss the Burgomaster’s laundry. (Here the patient weeps and forgets the remainder of the dream.)
With insights gained from this dream, Freud was able to help Metterling, and the two became quite friendly outside of analysis, although Freud would never let Metterling get behind him.
In Volume II, it has been announced, Eisenbud will take up Lists 7–25, including the years of Metterling’s “private laundress” and the pathetic misunderstanding with the Chinese on the corner.
1969
H. F. ELLIS
WITHOUT WHOSE UNFAILING ENCOURAGEMENT
FOR the genesis of my book, An Introduction to the Study of Introductions, I am principally indebted to my psychiatrist, Dr. Adolphus Peters, of Amsterdam. Having occasion to consult him about an irritating obsessive compulsion, which took the form of an inability to skip the introductory pages of any serious work that fell into my hands, I was at first repelled by his suggestion that instead of resisting the compulsion I embrace it and, by making a careful analysis of these preliminary throat-clearings, get them, in his homely phrase, out of my system. He persisted, however. Imagination gradually took fire, and now, some fifteen years later, it is a pleasure as well as a duty to record my gratitude to one but for whom I might still be unable to get as far as Chapter 1 of any book, not least my own.
A brie
f explanation is necessary to delineate the limits I have set myself in this inquiry. Forewords, not being in general the work of the writers whose books they seek to illumine or confute, I decided to omit, except insofar as they are referred to with gratification (see Chapter 9 passim) by the actual authors in their Introductions. The Prefatory Note has, of course, already been the subject of a scholarly monograph by Herr Emil Strohler, while the history and development of Contents (including List of Plates) will always be associated with the name of Silas R. Wisehammer, of Wisconsin. On these well-tilled fields I had no wish to trespass. Surprisingly little attention appears to have been paid to the Introduction proper, even the Germans having contented themselves with some rather cursory statistics, without any attempt to evaluate Introductions as an art form or to inquire into density of readership, recurrent phraseology, the omission quotient, and kindred matters of importance to the prolegomenist. I make no apology therefore for attempting to fulfill a want so ably categorized by Miss Phyllis Ash-baker, B.Sc. (who has given freely of her storehouse of specialized knowledge in a Foreword to this volume that I can never hope adequately to acknowledge), as “long felt.”
Particular attention has been paid to Acknowledgments, since these form at once the most universal and the least understood feature of Introductions. Of some 87,000 persons individually thanked for their help in the 5,319 Introductions it has been my good fortune to read and analyze, I have been in touch with rather more than half—a labor of love that seemed to me essential, as it is from their ranks that the Introduction readership proved to be almost totally drawn. I desire to thank them all again here, but have been compelled, in order to avoid over-weighting this Introduction, to take the unorthodox course of relegating their names to Appendix III. (No such comprehensive list of generous advisers, unstinting critics, laborious proofreaders, owners of hitherto unpublished mss. to which they most kindly gave access, and patient wives, drawn from every field of life and learning, from the preparation of soufflés to a new interpretation of the Gilgamesh Epic, has, it is believed, ever been compiled before.)* If I single out Dr. Wilbur H. Gumshott, of the Institute of Anthropology in Boston, it is only because the telephone conversation I had with him well illustrates the invaluable sidelights on my subject afforded me by personal contact with my many helpers:
Disquiet, Please! Page 18
