A Test of Poetry (1948) & A
Workers Anthology
Commentary
Corman, Cid. The
Practice of Poetry: Reconsiderations of Louis Zukofsky's
A Test of Poetry. Brattleboro, VT and Kyoto,
Japan:
Longhouse and Origin, 1998.
Creeley, Robert. “Foreword” to A Test of Poetry. Wesleyan UP, 2000. vii-x.
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. "A Test of Poetry and Conviction" (2004 Online).
Finkelstein, Norman. "Comparisons
and Criteria: Testing the Test of Poetry"
(2004 Online).
Hamilton, Colleen J. “History as Medium, Media
as History: Louis Zukofsky’s A Test of Poetry.”
New Definitions of Lyric: Theory, Technology, and Culture. Ed. Mark Jeffreys. NY: Garland Publ., 1998. 77-98.
Niedecker, Lorine. “A Review of
Louis Zukofsky’s A
Test of Poetry.” Capital Times (Madison, WI)
18 December 1948.
The
origins of this project go back to 1934 when LZ edited a never-published
volume, A Workers Anthology, although
most of the selections for that anthology were absorbed into A Test of Poetry (Scroggins Bio 146-148, see also DuPlessis Online). For the contents and further details on A
Workers Anthology, see below. In letters to both EP and WCW, LZ
indicates that he finished an initial version of A Test of Poetry by 1937 and the manuscript is dated 2 Aug. 1937,
but he had no luck finding a publisher and continued to tinker with it until at
least Oct. 1941 (see WCW/LZ 295). In
the end the volume was self-published in 1948 at CZ’s instigation by the
resurrected The Objectivist Press, designating the address of the press as the Zukofskys’ home at 30 Willow Street, Brooklyn.
There were further revisions or additions at the final stage (see WCW/LZ 399), which included the
incorporation of a passage from WCW, Paterson
II (III.23a), one of LZ’s own poems (I.16c), as well
as adaptations from Homer because of EP’s refusal to grant permission. Aside
from EP’s version of Homer in Canto I and passages from “Homage to Sextus Propertius” (see WCW/LZ 397-398), LZ had also hoped to
include three poems by Emily Dickinson, “To fill a gap“ (#546), “Revolution is
the Pod” (#1082) and “It was not Saint” (#1092), but her estate demanded a $25
fee LZ was unwilling to pay (Penberthy 152-153, WCW/LZ 398)—two lines of the second
Dickinson poem were incorporated into “A”-8.51.30-31. TP was republished in 1952 by Routlege
& Kegan Paul (London), in 1964 by Jargon/Corinth Books, in
1980 by Celia Zukofsky (CZ Publications) and most
recently by Wesleyan UP, 2000.
The final conception of TP
clearly owes a good deal to EP’s ABC of Reading (1934), which introduces
the section of “Exhibits” with the remark: “The ideal way to present the next
section of this booklet would be to give the quotations WITHOUT any comment
whatever. I am afraid that would be too revolutionary. […]”
(95). TP reflects many of the same editorial views and selections
as ABC of Reading, such as the emphasis on Renaissance translations of
Latin classics (Gavin Douglas, Arthur Golding, Christopher Marlowe) or the inclusion of the relatively
obscure sonnet by Mark Alexander Boyd. The following is a list of poems that LZ
used and that appeared previously in ABC of Reading, although LZ often
trimmed or added to EP’s specific selections from longer poems (references are
first to TP by section number followed by page number in ABC):
Chaucer (I.9b/111, II.9a/106, III.8a/112, III.9a/109), Gavin Douglas from
Virgil (I.6a & II.6a/117), Mark Alexander Boyd (II.10a/134), Christopher
Marlowe from Ovid (III.15b/135), John Donne (I.14a/137-138), Robert Herrick
(II.16a/142), John Wilmot, Lord Rochester (II.17d/172), Samuel Butler
(III.17b/160, 163), Alexander Pope (II.17a/168), George Crabbe
(I.18a/176).
Notes to A Test of Poetry
For the
most part the following notes indicate cross-references with other LZ works.
Part I
Epigraph:
from Michael Faraday (1791-1867), Experimental Researches in Electricity (1844-1855); LZ owned the Everyman
Library edition (1940) of these lectures, also qtd. in epigraph to Part III and in Bottom 205-206.
1c For
hell we launched…: this passage from Homer, Odyssey XI is adapted by
LZ and continues in the following exhibit 2a. LZ used this version, somewhat
abridged, in “A”-12.215.24-216.2, 218.6-8, 221.22-23 and 223.11-15. See also
III.7b.
2a And
paid our respects…: see note at I.1c.
5a Mentula:
first line alluded to at “A”-8.50.9. Mentula means prick or cock.
See “A”-18.390.21.
9b love trouthe
and . . wed thy folk:
qtd. “A”-13.284.3.
11b When
the sheriffe see gentel
Robin wold shoote, held /
Up both his hands: qtd. “A”-8.50.17.
12c So
distribution should undo excess: qtd. “A”-8.50.15.
13a Here
the anthem doth commence…: this entire passage qtd.
in Bottom 25-26 where it serves as a key text
in the argument; also qtd. “A”-12.170.31-171.3,
and alluded to in “A Keystone Comedy” (CF 186).
16c Little
wrists…: in CSP 114.
25b Lollai, lollai,
litil child, Whi wepistou so?: qtd. “A”-8.50.8.
Part II
Epigraphs: “. . .
only the primarily beautiful and new (old: new) remaining”: apparently WCW
wrote this as one of two
blurbs for 55 Poems, which LZ truncated: “An extraordinary
sensitivity. Only the merely contemporary sloughed off and only the primary
beautiful and new (old: new) remaining” (WCW/LZ 295, 399). “An
Extraordinary Sensitivity” is the title of WCW’s
review of 55 Poems published in Poetry in Sept. 1942 (Something
to Say 129).
“You will find many pencil marks…: from 9 Dec. 1857 letter to John
Tyndall.
1a-b LZ juxtaposes the same passages in Bottom
352, although he does not quote Pope’s version of the Iliad.
5b My
voice is hoarse . . .: qtd. Bottom
355.
10a LZ’s high
judgment of this sonnet by Mark Alexander Boyd echoes that of EP in ABC of Reading (1934): “I suppose this
is the most beautiful sonnet in the language, at any rate it has one
nomination” (134) (Scroggins Bio
146).
11a As ye
came from the holy land / Of Walsinghame…:
alluded to at “A”-12.131.8; phrases from last stanza qtd.
Bottom 13 and Little (CF 147).
12a I have no way and therefore want no
eyes; / I stumbled when I saw…: qtd. Bottom 10, 91, 312.
14b Things base and vile, holding no quantity…:
qtd. Bottom 9, 16, 18, 19,
20 and “A”-12.132.6-8.
16b Is this
a fast…: partially incorporated into “A”-23.548.34-549.4.
19c
He’s but / A coof for a’ that: qtd. “A”-8.50.11 and 8.50.16.
24b The white chickens of 24b…: part of the comment
on WCW’s poem is incorporated into “A”-17.380.8-11.
25a
I spec it will be all ’fiscated. / De massa
run, ha! ha! De darkey stay, ho! ho!: qtd.
“A”-8.50.13.
Part III
Epigraph: from
Michael Faraday (1791-1867), Experimental Researches in Electricity (see
note Part I).
4a
(the crooked bankes much wondring at the thing…:
lines 3-4 qtd. Bottom 93.
5a
LZ used a phrase from the last
line of the original Latin of this famous elegy for the title of the poem, “Atque
in Perpetuum A.W.” (CSP
231).
7b
Tell me, Muse, of that man who
got around…: LZ’s adaptation of the opening
invocation of Homer, Odyssey is incorporated, somewhat abridged, into
“A”-12.261.13-20.
10b
What
is your substance…: this sonnet qtd. entire in Bottom 436-437.
13a
Green groweth
the holly; so doth the ivy…: PZ wrote a variation on this poem that is
incorporated into “A”-20.436.29-38.
14a
As
virtuous men pass mildly away…: referred to in “An Objective” (Prep+
18) and qtd. Bottom 166.
14b
begotten of Despair / Upon
Impossibility…: these lines and also from the last stanza qtd. Bottom 187.
21c
And take upon’s . . / Who loses and
who wins…:
qtd. “A”-13.293.15, Bottom
312 and in “A Statement for Poetry” (Prep+ 22).
22a
To
the dim light and the large circle of shade…: this sestina was the formal
model for “‘Mantis’” (CSP 65-66), and LZ qtd. from it in “‘Mantis,’ An Interpretation” using a different
translation by P.H. Wicksteed (CSP 69, 73).
23c
That
day of wrath…: this poem, Dies Irae,
mentioned in Bottom 411.
A Workers Anthology
(1934-35)
A typescript of A Workers Anthology
exists among the Basil Bunting papers at the University of Durham,
which is a clean copy of what appears a complete work. This anthology is
smaller, less ambitious and intended for a different readership than A Test
of Poetry. Why A Workers Anthology remained unpublished or even if
LZ attempted to get it published remains unclear, but it is evident that he
intended the work as an assertion of aesthetic as well as political value in
response to more typical worker or protest poetry anthologies published in the
late 1920s and 1930s. The poems and passages of A Workers Anthology are
dated and presented in chronological order, and the brief preface states that
the anthology depicts the manifestation of “revolutionary struggle and ideas”
in excellent poetry from the past 2000 years. Evoking Lenin in support of art’s
value for the masses, the work’s stated intention is on the one hand to awaken
the artistic in workers and on the other to demonstrate to poets the potential
of excellent poetry intended for the masses. Ten of the selections have short
notes appended to them, usually drawing out the protest dimensions of the
poems. All but five of the 38 selections were subsequently incorporated into A
Test of Poetry, using the same passages taken from longer poems, although
occasionally the versions in the later work were slightly more complete or
extended.
The contents of A Workers Anthology are
as follows:
Preface (dated March 8, 1935)
|
42 B.C.-A.D.17
|
Ovid, from Amorum III, Elegia 7, trans. Christopher Marlowe (TP 51)
|
|
42 B.C.-A.D.17
|
Ovid, from Metamorphoses, Book I, trans. Arthur Golding (TP 7)
|
|
c.1308-1318
|
From a MS. in Anglo-Irish Dialect [“Lollai,
lollai, litil child”] (TP
43-44, 102)
|
|
c.1369
|
Geoffrey Chaucer, from “Nero” [“Now fil
it so that fortune…and hadde a game”], “The Monkes Tale,” The Canterbury Tales
|
|
c.1440
|
possibly by Richard Rolle of Hampole [“Erthe out of erthe is wondirly wroghte”] (TP 14)
|
|
c.1465
|
Francois Villon, “Epistle in Form of a
Ballad to his Friends,” trans. A.C. Swinburne (TP
15-16)
|
|
15th Century
|
“God be with trewthe where he be! / I wolde he were in this cuntre” (TP 133)
|
|
15th Century
|
“Carol” [“A Lyke-Wake Dirge”: “This ae nighte…”] (TP 13)
|
|
15th Century
|
Ballad – “Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires” (TP 19)
|
|
15th Century
|
also from “Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires” (TP 19-20)
|
|
1601
|
William Shakespeare, from “The Phoenix and the Turtle” (TP 22)
|
|
1601
|
John Donne, “The Progresse of the Soul
(Metempsychosis),” Stanzas XXXIII & XXXIV
|
|
1607
|
William Shakespeare, King Lear IV.i
(TP 21)
|
|
1607
|
William Shakespeare, King Lear IV.vi
(TP 116)
|
|
1607
|
William Shakespeare, King Lear III.iv
(TP 139)
|
|
1607
|
William Shakespeare, King Lear IV.vi
(TP 139)
|
|
1608-1651
|
Thomas Fuller, “The Faithless Minister” (TP 77)
|
|
1647
|
John Fletcher, from “The Beggar’s Bush” (TP 27)
|
|
17th Century
|
Anonymous, “Hic jacet John Shorthose” (TP 27)
|
|
1648
|
Robert Herrick, “To Keep a True Lent” (TP 79-80)
|
|
1662
|
Samuel Butler, from Hudibras (TP
133-134)
|
|
c.1670
|
John Wilmot (Earl of Rochester),
from “Ode to Nothing” (TP 30)
|
|
c.1670
|
John Wilmot (Earl of Rochester),
from “A Letter from Artemisa in the Town, To Chloe
in the Country” (TP 82-83)
|
|
1687
|
Philip Ayres, “On a Fair Beggar” (TP 136)
|
|
1784
|
Robert Burns, from “Holy Willie’s Prayer” (TP 34-35)
|
|
1786
|
Robert Burns, from “Address to the Devil” (TP 34)
|
|
1794
|
William Blake, “The Little Vagabond,” Songs of Experience
|
|
1794
|
William Blake, “London,”
Songs of Experience
|
|
1795
|
Robert Burns, “Is there for honest Poverty” [“For A’ That and A’
That] (TP 88-89)
|
|
1810
|
George Crabbe, from “The Borough,”
XVIII (TP 135 (“Here is no pavement…dubious aid”), 32)
|
|
1840
|
Thomas Hood, from “Miss Kilmansegg and
Her Precious Leg” (TP 10)
|
|
1841
|
Robert Browning, from Pippa
Passes, Act II (TP 39, 95)
|
|
c.1841
|
Walter Savage Landor, “Epithalamium” (TP
93-94)
|
|
1865
|
H.C. Work, “The year of Jubilee” (TP 43, 102)
|
|
1868-9
|
Robert Browning, from The Ring and the Book II (TP
93)
|
|
1830-1886
|
Emily Dickinson (first published 1929), “Revolution is the pod /
System”
|
|
1898-1918
|
Guillaume Apollinaire, an arrangement
from the poems, trans. L.Z.
|
|
1919
|
André Salmon, an arrangement from “Prikaz,”
trans. L.Z
|
Additional Notes:
•LZ includes Catullus
CXV in the prose translation of F.W. Cornish (TP 10) in a note comparing
it with the selection from Thomas Hood’s “Miss Killmansegga
and Her Precious Leg.”
•In a note to a song in Anglo-Irish dialect, “Lollai, lollai, litil child,” LZ makes comparison with the African-American
song, “Forty-leben days gone by” included in TP
150. The source of this latter song was an article from New Masses by
Lawrence Gellert (1898-1979), an important pioneering
collector of black folk music, that includes various song texts: “Negro Songs
of Protest,” New Masses (Jan. 1931): 6-8. LZ probably found this song in
New Masses, but possibly via EP who included quite a few of the songs
from Gellert’s article in his anthology Profile
(1932), in which LZ also appeared.
•Snippets from both the John Donne and Emily
Dickinson selections, neither of which made it into TP, appear in “A”-8
(50.11, 50.12-13 and 51.30).
•The arrangement of poems from Apollinaire selects lines and short passages from six
poems, which appear in The Writings of Guillaume Apollinaire—a
few of the same selections show up in Arise, Arise (23, 25, 26).
•The arrangement of poems from André Salmon’s “Prikaz” consists of the same passages and in the same order
as those that appeared in René Taupin’s essay, “Three
Poems by André Salmon,” translated by LZ and published in the “Objectivists”
issue of Poetry 37.5 (Feb. 1931): 289-293 and 37.6 (March 1931): 333-339
(the passages from “Prikaz” appear on pages 292-293,
334-337 respectively).
