i.e., The Cambridge Review

"The responsibility to externals which caused this atrophy (of the artist submerged in an academic society) is in fact the irresponsibility of the individual to himself." This quotation from the foreword indicates the polemic aim of i.e., The Cambridge Review, now in its second issue. The polemic, however, is not directed toward a definite set of ideas; nor has it been adequately enunciated in the two forewords which have appeared so far. Nevertheless, the editor, Leo Raditsa, has avowedly attempted to organize and to stimulate an attack upon "the new irresponsibility."

So far, we flounder in the realm of truisms and vague calls to action. It is in specific articles that the justification for the aims of i.e. must be sought. It is by analyzing a substantial group that we may determine whether Mr. Raditsa has done more than put together a miscellaneous assortment of writings, whether he has in fact created an organ which will express a distinct and significant element of thought at the University. Two issues do not provide sufficient material to form any judgment. Nevertheless even in the current issue the articles forcibly direct our attention to the problem of "the discovery of the self," be it by means of Gnosis, its historical emergence-according to Jacob Taubes-or of an adequate understanding of Existential historicity-according to Paul de Man.

Professor Taubes is represented by a lecture, "The Gnostic Idea of Man," taken down by students in his course, "Freedom and the Spirit of Heresy." Although his thesis necessarily appears in highly condensed and incomplete form, we cannot but be grateful for this fascinating document. Gnosis in the early Christian era was "a secret learning necessary for man's salvation." With what justification Professor Taubes calls it "the emergence of man's self as a general human experience . . . the axis of our history," is of course the central problem arising out of his lecture.

Where the Hegelian perspective seems to be subtly and profoundly assimilated in Professor Taubes' article, Mr. de Man espouses Heidegger more than he cares to admit. His article, The Inward Generation, represents an extremely ambitious attempt to define the contemporary nibilism in literature in terms of some of the tenets of Existential philosophy. But it is disquieting to be offered no more than glimpses into a mammoth question. A minute area of this question argued with sustained lyricism or philosophic incisiveness would reveal the whole in a more compelling manner that the almost breathless exposition which Mr. de Man offers.

The only work of fiction in i.e. is an except entitled The Baumans from Hona Karmel's forthcoming novel. Miss Karmel's story deals with the survivors of the Nazi ghettos in post-war Poland; it evokes as well the experience of the ghetto itself, and of the pre-war life of a Jewish family. Specifically, we are confronted with the characterization of two individuals a mother and a daughter. Is it enough that Miss Karmel has attained a "skillful" delineation of these figures, a "striking" presentation of their personal dilema? Has she a right to utilize a human drama charged with the most potent implications, both personal and historic, for the sake of a vaguely symbolic bit of moralizing, an imperfectly conceived and in essence shallow attempt at psychological probing?

My questions imply the recognition of considerable merits in her story. Certainly, profound dilemmas are not always enacted on a plane of heroic tragedy. To depict sordidness itself as a component of great actions is also a task, and Miss Karmel seems aware of it. Furthermore, her ability to marshall the facts themselves so vividly that her probing of them appears glaringly inadequate, indicates the measure of her technical accomplishment. It is the most basic responsibility to that technique, however, which I find lacking.

Any summary discussion of the great amount of poetry in this issue would be as presumptuous as it would be useless. Lyon Phelps, Angus Fletcher, Ruth Whitman, and Hugh Amory have made contributions which will in some cases richly repay close reading. I cannot omit mentioning, however, the thrill of discovery which I have experienced in the course of my readings of Mr. Amory's Lieder and his Prothalamium. I find them the most exquisite and successful achievements in the magazine. That the Lieder have probed so centrally into a relationship, that the Prothalamium attains a ritual by means of manifold yet consistently intense gestures-and that all this is done with a subtlety of technique which is characterized by its own humility, I find immensely moving.