Magic Words

For

me, the great turning point, even a kind of epiphany, took place between the ages of 8 and 10. I was able to go every day to the very well stocked Melrose branch of the New York Public Library, not far from where we lived in the Bronx. We spoke Yiddish at home. I had taught myself to read English when I was very small. To this day, my pronunciation is as odd as it is because I learned it through the eye rather than through the ear.

I didn't hear any English spoken until I arrived in first grade. At the library, I would perpetually take out and read and reread the poetry of William Blake and Hart Crane until I copied them all out and memorized them without, of course, properly understanding them.

LATEST COVER STORY Mind & Body Happiness Jan. 17, 2004 Past Issues Tsunami Jan. 10, 2004 ----------------- Person of the Year Jan. 3, 2004 ----------------- Secrets of the Nativity Dec. 13, 2004 ----------------- The Stealth Killer Dec. 6, 2004 ----------------- Coolest Inventions Nov. 29, 2004 ----------------- Battle for Fallujah Nov. 22, 2004 ----------------- Four More Years Nov. 15, 2004 ----------------- The Joy Of Sox Nov. 8, 2004 ----------------- The Morning After Nov. 1, 2004 ----------------- The God Gene Oct. 25, 2004 ----------------- The Vote Battle Oct. 18, 2004 ----------------- Visions of Tomorrow Oct. 11, 2004 ----------------- The Tragedy of Sudan Oct. 4, 2004 ----------------- CBS Controversy Sept. 27, 2004 ----------------- America's Border Sept. 20, 2004 ----------------- Struggle Within Islam Sept. 13, 2004 ----------------- World of George Bush Sept. 6, 2004 -----------------   SPECIAL REPORTS  Coolest Video Games 2004  Coolest Inventions  Wireless Society  Cool Tech 2004 PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS  At The Epicenter  Paths to Pleasure  Quotes of the Week  This Week's Gadget  Cartoons of the Week More graphics >> More photos >> MORE STORIES Advisor: Rove Warrior The Bushes: Family Dynasty Klein: Benneton Ad Presidency More Stories >> CNN.com: Latest News

I went on from there to incessantly read Shakespeare and Milton and Wallace Stevens and indeed almost all imaginative literature, so by the time I was about 15, I had exhausted the Melrose branch. At 16 or so, I started in the main library at 42nd Street, making a valiant attempt to read out the New York Public Library. But then at 17 I went off to Cornell and spent four years there reading through the Cornell library. I got to Yale as a graduate student at 21, and now I have been here 50 consecutive years. I have been reading my way through both my own library and the Yale library.

I have never written a poem in my life. Poetry has always been to me a sacred threshold guarded by demons. I don't know why it is that some people ravished by great poetry spend their lives attempting to be poets, and some become literary critics. Poetry is not a process anyone has ever fully understood, but I suspect that it was for me almost from the start a kind of religion, and therefore I felt it was my business to receive it and appreciate it and understand it but not to try to duplicate it.

By now I have written 25 volumes of criticism and edited 1,000 anthologies of literary criticism, and I have got a huge volume of about 850 pages called Genius, which is a study of 100 different writers and will be published in October. Last year I turned out an anthology called Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages, which is, in a sense, my anti- Harry Potter anthology, because I loathe Harry Potter. Those books are hopeless and massively cliched — bad thinking and bad writing. And they will vanish. In spite of all the hype and all the 120 million copies, they're bound for the rubbish heap in five, six years.

I still know almost all of Blake and certainly all of Hart Crane by heart. I have spent a lifetime teaching them. It takes a lifetime and more to really understand them. It takes lots of really intelligent readers.

Regard for poetry has slipped a great deal. That is because at its best, with very rare exceptions, even simple and very direct poetry is now quite difficult for most readers. But now what is not difficult for most readers? In our society, in which the screen dominates and everything is visual and the flood of information is incessant, teaching people how to read is a major enterprise.

I think the study of imaginative literature in the universities in the English-speaking world is essentially dead and will not be revived. There are still individuals everywhere who care passionately about literature rather than about ideology, but for the most part the people I call the School of Resentment, the ideologues, have taken over. We no longer have the study of English literature or comparative literature. We have what is called cultural studies, and we all know what that is worth. But there's no point despairing about these things.

If one takes the longest perspective, Western literature of the highest quality goes back more than 3,000 years. It's hard to believe it will not continue in some form.