The Montreal Forties: Modernist Poetry in Transition by Brian Trehearne (review)

MLR, 97.4, 2002 951 before baldly stating, 'Sympathy is unsuited to an apocalyptic poem' (p. 100). He then states that even when Merrill's contempt is acknowledged, 'he would belong to a respected if dark tradition' that includes Twain, Yeats, Eliot, Pound, and Beckett. Neither statement really convinces as a defence of Merrill. The first ignores the element of choice in Merrill's determining who is unworthy (although the concept of choice is itself problematic given Merrill's statements regarding the poem's origin). The invocation ofa near-misanthropic literarytradition seems more reasonable. But it ignores how farMerrill's privileged background made him seem simply never to have been in contact with the 'human average'. Overall, Materer seriously underestimates how far Merrill's class attitudes can form a serious obstacle for potential readers of the poetry. The other concern is with the spiritualism, and especially with the Ouija board that Merrill told us provided the means by which Sandover was created. As in his previous study,Modernist Alchemy (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1995), Materer sometimes views mysticism as metaphoric, and sometimes asserts that we must take itas seriously as the poet did. Here, Materer's admission of his ambivalence is appreciated, but it does not make the problem go away. He comments that when Merrill claims that Sandover 'was dictated to him by spirits' perhaps he 'simply means the origin of the poem is mysterious even to its maker' (p. 8). Of course, it may simply mean that Merrill says spirits dictated the poem and he meant what he said. If so, one either has to take that literally or believe that Merrill is being misleading. Either choice has been problematic for readers, and again, Materer underestimates how much of a concern this topic has been for the assessment of Merrill's poetry. The attractive design of this book makes it a pleasure to read but there are a few lapses and typographical errors that should have been caught in proof. It may seem pedantic to complain of the misrepresentation of the names of Northrop Frye and Irvin Ehrenpreis, but the bizarre scrambling ofquotation fromColeridge's 'Dejection: An Ode' and the mysterious appearance of a Yeats poem called 'The Coming of the Magi' are unnecessary distractions in an otherwise engrossing and erudite study. Trinity College Dublin Stephen Matterson The Montreal Forties: Modernist Poetry in Transition. By Brian Trehearne. Toronto , Buffalo, New York, and London: University of Toronto Press. 1999. x + 381 pp. $60; ?45. AestheticismandtheCanadianModernists(Kmgston, Montreal, and London: McGillQueen 's University Press, 1989) established Brian Trehearne as a rigorous, studious, traditional historian of modern Canadian poetry. He is traditional in his respect for major writers whom he studies in accordance with clearly delineated historical contexts, and whose artistry he assesses through close readings of selected poems in the light of their authors' letters, documents, and biographical details. He prefers practice to theory. He is not concerned to problematize the above terms; instead, he treats them with a passion for detail that reveals their complex interworkings. In The Montreal Forties he extends his view into the 1940s by examining four poets, P. K. Page, A. M. Klein, Irving Layton, and Louis Dudek. Whereas in his firstbook European aestheticism provided a flexible, overarching system, in The Montreal For? ties he cannot distinguish a dominant movement with the same range of explanatory power. Occasionally he offers English surrealism and the New Apocalypse poets (a school whose influence cannot be underestimated, in my view) as candidates, but he makes a better case for Imagism as a model of poetic style and modern perception, a way of seeing poetically in an impoverished world. It allows him to define a 'forties 952 Reviews poetics', which is disjointed, accumulative, ironic, and metaphorically daring, as it summons a vision of selfhood in the midst of cultural fragmentation. This precariously integrated vision Trehearne calls 'integritas', adopting James Joyce's term. The search for an authentic unity amid cultural chaos is a familiar Modernist ambition ('Thesefragments I have shored against my ruins',lamentsT. S. Eliot'sFisher King), but I am not sure why Trehearne favours the theologically loaded term 'integritas'. As he presents it, however...

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