play and raises uncomfortable questions about
the self and the world.
Despite Wilbur’s achievement as a poet and
his many awards, including the gold medal for
poetry from the American Academy and Insti-
tute of Arts and Letters in 1991, many critics
would argue that he has not become the major
poet he seemed destined to be whenThings of
This Worldwas so celebrated. Even if this argu-
able judgment is accepted, Wilbur’s poetry alone
is not the measure of his significance as a man of
letters. For a balanced view of his literary impor-
tance it should be acknowledged that he is a
discerning critic and an accomplished translator
of poetry and drama in verse. Wilbur’s view of
translating is unquestionably an extension of his
poetry writing. Viewing translation as a craft, he
has consistently set for himself the goal of
authenticity in translating not just the language
but the verse forms as well. The importance of
including Wilbur’s translations in an evaluation
of his talents as a poet has been neatly summed
up by Raymond Oliver: ‘‘His degree of accuracy
is almost always very high and his technical skill
as a poet is just about equal to that of the people
he translates.’’ Wilbur’s versions of Moliere’s`
works not only read well as verse but have been
staged with great success. He has followed suc-
cess in comedy with highly regarded translations
in the 1980s of two of Racine’s tragedies.
Wilbur has also had considerable impor-
tance as a literary critic. One could contend
that he has surpassed, with the possible excep-
tions of Randall Jarrell and Karl Shapiro, his
contemporaries as a poet-critic. He has written
perceptively on his poetic opposite, Edgar Allan
Poe, and he has delivered a major essay on Emily
Dickinson. He has edited the poems of Poe and
coedited the poems of William Shakespeare. The
sixteen reviews and critical essays collected in
Responses, Prose Pieces: 1953-1976(1976) and
the interviews and conversations inConversa-
tions with Richard Wilburshow Wilbur’s percep-
tion on other writers as well as on his own work.
His insights into his own work compare in qual-
ity, if not quite in quantity, with James Dickey’s
attempts inSelf-Interviews(1970) andSorties
(1971) to describe his own creativity.
Certainly, a trenchant defense of Wilbur as a
poet is to be made on the grounds that many
critics have overlooked the stylistic and tonal
complexities of his poetry, much as the New Critic
formalists had earlier failed to recognize
complexities in Robert Frost, a poet Wilbur has
always admired. Wilbur has evidenced a crafts-
man’s interest in a wide variety of poetry—dra-
matic, lyric, meditation, and light verse. His wit,
especially his skillful rhymes and the puns found
even in his serious poetry, has not always been
treated kindly by critics, but it has often capti-
vated readers. He has been recognized by child-
ren’s literature specialists for his volumes of light
verse—Loudmouse,Opposites(1973),MoreOppo-
sites(1991), andRunaway Opposites(1995)—all
written with grace, wit, and humor.
In John Ciardi’sMid-Century Poets(1950)
Wilbur identified what has remained his con-
stant goal as a poet, whatever type of poem he
has written: ‘‘The poem is an effort to articulate
relationships not quite seen, to make or discover
some pattern in the world. It is conflict with
disorder.’’ Wilbur’s confrontation with disorder
has led him to be satisfied with established pat-
terns and traditional themes, old ways to solve
old problems. Consistently a poet of affirmation,
he has reacted against the two extremes of dis-
order: chaos and destruction on the one hand
and illusions and escapism on the other. His
response as both poet and humanist is to main-
tain a firm focus on reality as represented by
objects, by the things of this world. As a poet
he must be modestly heroic, see more, and range
further than the ordinary citizen....
Nevertheless, the question raised earlier in
Wilbur’s career in regard to his development
remains in the 1990s: Does his adherence to
formalist principles preclude his consideration
as a major poet during a postmodernist period
in which poets were expected to respond to a
changing social and literary landscape?
InWilbur’s Poetry: Music in a Scattering
Time(1991) Michelson avoids reviving all the
old arguments about formalism versus experi-
mentation, closed versus open forms, and aca-
demic poetry versus postmodernism, from which
Wilbur emerges as a reactionary, if not a heavy.
Michelson goes instead directly to the poems to
argue not only for evidence of the stylistic range
and variety of Wilbur’s artistry but also to affirm
his sensitivity to the major moral and aesthetic
crises of his times. As Lionel Trilling found in
Frost, Michelson finds in Wilbur a darker side.
He is to be redeemed as not only the acknowl-
edged master of light verse but also of some less
acknowledged dark, meditative poems. Michel-
son does not find Wilbur to be a ‘‘terrifying poet’’Love Calls Us to the Things of This World