The Stroke of a Pen

Samuel Hazo

Description

For over five decades, Samuel Hazo has taught his readers about literature and life with generosity and awareness, taking everyday experiences and translating them into songs at once familiar and surprising. In his poetry, fiction, essays, and plays, Hazo, in a style that is unmistakably his own, extols the wonderment and discovery that emerge in the act of writing, in the movement toward wisdom that results from the expression of feeling.

The Stroke of a Pen is a collection of the occasional essays on a variety of subjects, from the relationship between poetry and public speech, to the pursuit of the literary life, to reading within a cultural context governed by power relations. Two essays focus on religion and literature, and the final five include a literary travel essay on Provence, a counterpointing one on the virtues of not traveling but remaining home, a lighter essay that extends the discussion of home to houses, a memory piece on the actor Gregory Peck, and a personal reflection on the author's retirement. Throughout, Hazo is belletristic in his approach, calling on such writers as T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen, Jacques Maritain, and Nathan A. Scott, Jr., who deeply influences Hazo's thinking and writing in this entertaining collection.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Esthétique et philosophie de l'art
• Literary Criticism
• 20th Century
• Essays
• Modern
• PHILOSOPHY
• Modern history
• Suffix (name)
• Aesthetics
• Provence
• Wilfred Owen
• JR
• Jacques Maritain
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• T. S. Eliot

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268081706
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

The Stroke of a Pen

The Stroke of a Pen

e s s a y s o n p o e t r y a n d o t h e r p r o v o c a t i o n s

S A M U E L H A Z O

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright © 2011 by the University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hazo, Samuel John. The stroke of a pen : essays on poetry and other provocations / Samuel Hazo. p.฀cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-03094-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-03094-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13:฀978-0-268-08170-6฀(web฀pdf) I.฀Title. PS3515.A9877S77 2011 814'.54 — dc22

2010052721 ∞The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

In Memoriam

Albert C. Labriola

Scholar, Teacher, Colleague, Friend

c o n t e n t s

Preface

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1. Poetry and Public Speech 3

2. Power and Pretense 13

3. Strike Down the Band 23

4. The Lasting Marriage of Knowledge and Belief 32

5. Belief and the Critic 39

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6. Endthoughts of a Recent Retiree 69

7. Provence of the Six Winds 76

8. Why Go Anywhere Whenever? 107

9. Remembering Gregory Peck 116

10. To Wrestle a Slow Thief 121

Sources

131

p r e f a c e

Everything I’ve ever written I’ve initially written by hand. Poetry, fic- tion, essays, plays — they all began when the nib of my fountain pen touched paper. Later would come the final drafts on a typewriter or eventually on a word processor or computer. But it all started with a pen in my right hand. A fountain pen. Writing with a ballpoint or a pencil seemed somehow both unacceptable and unauthentic, as if I were signing a bad check. In the essays in this book on poetry, power, music, knowledge, faith, literary criticism, travel, home, friendship, and what is errone- ously called retirement (a term I hate because it is both inaccurate and to me demeaning), I found that writing with a p en matched the pace of my thought as it evolved. That’s the reason why being a penman has always defined for me what it means to be a writer. I have written each essay in this book like a letter to a close friend. Nothing but expressing the whole truth has been my criterion, as it should be between friends. I hope the reader will find himself addressed in this spirit from the first page to the last. Grateful acknowledgment goes toSewanee Review, Renascence, Notre Dame Magazine, University of Pittsburgh American Experience Pro- gram, Vital Speeches,andCarnegie Magazine,in which some of these essays first appeared. I would also like to thank William O’Rourke for suggesting the apt subtitle of this book.

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