The High White Wall and the Hospital Bed: Central European and Western American Poets

Abstract

American writers have always had an uneasy relationship to the idea and sometimes to the fact of Europe. The critic Philip Rahv classified American writers up to, say, 1950 as either Palefaces or Redskins. Palefaces turned to the east not just to the Atlantic coast of America but to Europe, conscious of inheriting European themes and forms, including forms of language. Redskins faced west, toward frontiers of language, form, and theme. The distinction is perfectly illustrated by the novelists Henry James and Mark Twain. James spent much of his life in Europe, first in France and then in England, where he became a citizen not long before he died. He thought that the American novelist labored under enormous handicaps because America had