Dramatists and the Bomb: American and British Playwrights Confront the Nuclear Age, 1945-1964 by Charles A. Carpenter Mirrors of Our Playing: Paradigms and Presences in Modern Drama by Thomas R. Whitaker (review)

Abstract

poems, includingthe recentlydiscoveredcomic poem, 'Balladof the SubwayTrain', writtenwhen shewas sixteen. Other essayson childhood areBarbaraPage's'Bishop as Poet of Childhood Recollected' (pp. 21-34), and Gail H. Dayton's critiqueof the autobiographicalmemoir in prose, 'The CountryMouse' (pp. 35-4I). Another section focuses upon 'Worcesterand Elsewhere',primarilyessaysabout Brazil, exile and migration, that fill in some interesting biographical detail on familiar topics. Carmen L. Oliveira's 'Luminous Lota' (pp. 83-91) and George Monteiro's 'Bishop'sBraziland ViceVersa' (pp. 93-98) have sympatheticperspectives on Lota de Macedo Soares with whom Bishop lived for thirteen years at Petropolis.Essaysin thissection also drawon the paradisetheme, includingHarriet Y. Cooper's 'ElizabethBishop:Longing forHome - And Paradise'(pp. I19-28). The section of five essays on translation has three essays on Bishop's own translations,and two on translatingherworkintoJapanese. The section on Bishop's relationshipto other writershas a diverse net ranging from the expected names of George Herbert and Wordsworth (the latter again in pursuit of the childhood theme), to Jorie Graham and other contemporary women poets in James McCorkle's essay 'Elizabeth Bishop's Embracing Gaze' (pp. 259-70). Students would be happy to light upon the section entitled 'Images and Insights: Close Readings' which includes Joelle Biele on 'The End of March' (pp. 129-38) and Lorrie Goldensohn's insightfulessay illustratedwith some of Bishop'swatercolors, 'ElizabethBishop'sWrittenPictures,PaintedPoems' (pp. I67-76). 'Imperialism,Politics,Racism'isashortsection,butconfirmsthatpostcolonialism is currently a productive, if problematic field in Bishop studies. Steven Gould Axelrod wastes no time in posing the question: 'Was Elizabeth Bishop a Racist?' (pp. 345-56), focusing, not on the Brazilianpoems, but upon racial identity in two early poems, 'Cootchie' and 'Songs for a Colored Singer'. He finds the former a 'naive discourse' guilty of 'peeking out' from a 'cocoon of whiteness'. Renee R. Curry's 'Elizabeth Bishop: At Home with Whiteness' (pp. 337-44) reads 'The Imaginary Iceberg' as a 'blatant display of white racial dominance'. Both critics acknowledgethe complexity of Bishop'spoetry, but seem surprisedthat she did not take pains to edit out racist stereotypes. These papers raise interesting issues, but seem so paralysedby theirown desireto exhibit correctracialattitudesthat they fail to trace the exploratorynature of her imagination:attitudesand shiftsof attitudes, after all, were her poetic material. The ground is laid here, however, for further workon this subject. The essays in this collection would provide studentswith a useful entry into the Bishop criticalcommunity, and it is good to thinkthat Worcester,for all its painful associationsfor Bishop personally, can also be a place of communal celebration of her life and work. UNIVERSITY OF READING PAT RIGHELATO Dramatistsand the Bomb:American and BritishPlaywrights Confront theNuclearAge, I945-i964. By CHARLESA. CARPENTER. Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press. I999. xv + I83 pp. ?47.95. Alirrorsof OurPlaying.Paradigms and Presences in Modern Drama. By THOMAS R. WHITAKER.(Theater:Theory/Text/Performance) Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press. I999. viii + 309 PP. $49.50;?36. These two books, both of which springfrom intenselypersonal concerns, takevery different approaches to the nature of drama and its function within twentiethcentury culture. poems, includingthe recentlydiscoveredcomic poem, 'Balladof the SubwayTrain', writtenwhen shewas sixteen. Other essayson childhood areBarbaraPage's'Bishop as Poet of Childhood Recollected' (pp. 21-34), and Gail H. Dayton's critiqueof the autobiographicalmemoir in prose, 'The CountryMouse' (pp. 35-4I). Another section focuses upon 'Worcesterand Elsewhere',primarilyessaysabout Brazil, exile and migration, that fill in some interesting biographical detail on familiar topics. Carmen L. Oliveira's 'Luminous Lota' (pp. 83-91) and George Monteiro's 'Bishop'sBraziland ViceVersa' (pp. 93-98) have sympatheticperspectives on Lota de Macedo Soares with whom Bishop lived for thirteen years at Petropolis.Essaysin thissection also drawon the paradisetheme, includingHarriet Y. Cooper's 'ElizabethBishop:Longing forHome - And Paradise'(pp. I19-28). The section of five essays on translation has three essays on Bishop's own translations,and two on translatingherworkintoJapanese. The section on Bishop's relationshipto other writershas a diverse net ranging from the expected names of George Herbert and Wordsworth (the latter again in pursuit of the childhood theme), to Jorie Graham and other contemporary women poets in James McCorkle's essay 'Elizabeth Bishop's Embracing Gaze' (pp. 259-70). Students would be happy to light upon the section entitled 'Images...