On “Men at Forty”

25Feb09

“The basic prosodic principle at work here is one Justice learned from his lifetime study of meter: the establishment of a pattern and variation on it. [...]  ’Men at Forty’ has all the clarity of shape of the most formal poem because it is a most formal poem. Justice’s most effective writing has often taken the form of free verse because it has caused an even greater fidelity to the subject.”

(CS 33)

Filed under: Criticism, Prosody   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Certain Solitudes - ed. Gioia & Logan, Donald Justice, From "Flaubert in Florida" - Ryan, Michael Ryan