28 I CHRONICLESnimages captured on film, stationary ornmoving, those hoaked-up picturesnworth a thousand hoaked-up words,ntheir “truth” a matter of who pointsnthe camera at what and why, vahdatednby sales. It was not ever thus.nAnd if any ought to try to break thenvicious cycle of this enslaving processnwherein manufactured imagery givesnbirth to itself in logarithmic increasenthroughout every human mind (mostnatrociously the growing child’s mind)nuntil it guarantees that even in one’sndeepest dreams (dreams, which Platoncalled the language of the soul and ofneternity) one communes not withnone’s gods but the ubiquitous czars ofntrade—the poet should.nThe epic poet prays to his muses,nwho are the daughters not of contrivancenbut of memory, to aid him in hisnprojechons of images of the real. Hisnfunction is to sing what was, not makenthings up. Homer seems to have livednlong after the events he describes withneyewitness precision, a precision sonconvincing it led Schliemann and Blegennto try to dig it all up, an enterprisenof overwhelming success. Any discrepanciesnare merely plausible break­nPostmortem by Joseph Schwartzndowns in an oral transmission coveringnseveral centuries of transfer of the factsnfrom bard to apprentice (the incorrectnfunction of chariots, details of armament,nthe organization of the state, thenso-called “wooden horse,” probably annimaginary explanation for a misunderstoodnsiege engine, and so on). Thenforms of fantasy we have come to calln”creativity” counted for very littlen(though there is some) in the formationnof that classical temper of whichnthe Iliad is our oldest and perhaps bestnexemplar. Consequently, the personalitiesnHomer ascribes to the variousnputative historical characters in hisnpoem are highly likely to be the personalitiesneach of them actually had.nWhat the poet supplies is Keats’s celebratedn”negative capability”: He allowsneach in turn to fill his imagination,nhave his sympathies, and speaknthrough the formular epic language ofntradition. There is nothing prettynabout Homer’s war, but at leastnwounds are only wounds, not occasionsnfor gory fashion photography innverse. One fights over a dead hero’sncorpse not to provide neat crosscuttingnbut so that it may have the dignity ofn”We would rather run ourselves down than not speaknof ourselves at all. “n—La RochefoucauldnThe Fifties: From Notebooks andnDiaries of the Period by EdmundnWilson, New York: Farrar, Straus &nGiroux; $25.00.nPortrait ofDelmore: Journals andnNotes ofDelmore Schwartzn1939-1959, edited by ElizabethnPellet, New York: Farrar, Straus &nGiroux; $35.00.nWhen the reputable and talentedndie, it is often their fate to haventheir privacy examined in detail. Thisnis a mixed blessing at best. How chillingnit is to remember that Nijinski’sn]oseph Schwartz is professor ofnEnglish at Marquette University.nfeet were cut open to see if the bonesnwere somehow special. There must bensome clue, we think, to the mystery ofnfame.nThe Fifties, again edited by LeonnEdel, is the fourth volume of EdmundnWilson’s notebooks to be published,nand the most tedious to date, It containsnseemingly endless family data (sixnpages on the stealing of a Boston Rocker),ngossip, comments on his relativesnand his wife’s relatives, various andnsundry opinions, and (though now lessnso) the temperature of his sexual relations.nI think it time to call a halt.nWilson himself edited, in part, ThenTwenties, about which he said that hendidn’t want to publish inferior material.nHis wish has not been heeded. Atnnnritual burial that alone allows rest tonthe immortal soul.nCertainly that black warrior on WarnMusic’s cover looks like one to whomnthe original lUad would make perfectnsense. One hopes he never learns ofnthe product his dignity has beennpressed into making salable. (He looksnlike he would sure know what to donwith Mr. Logue.)nAnd,nAt a window of the closednstone capital,nHelen wipes the sweat fromnunder her big breasts.nAoi! . . . she is beauhful.nBut there is something foulnabout her, too.nThis is the other of Mr. Logue’s borderlinenporn flick fantasies about anMycenaean queen reknowned as thenmost desirable woman of all time.nSurely The Real Thing would havenknown what to do about one such,ntoo. I imagine her flicking her sweat innthis poet’s voyeur eyes and drawing thencurtain over the majesty and mysterynof something arresting enough to benremembered by real poets forever.nthe beginning of this inflated enterprise,nexpectations were high. In anbrief memoir in the Times LiterarynSupplement, Harry Levin said that henhad thought the American counterpartnof the Goncourts would be forthcomingnbut was saddened by what henfound, even in The Twenties, the bestnof the lot. The 41 copybooks (somen2,000 manuscript pages), it appears,nwill not constitute an invaluable historynof American literary and culturalnlife.nBy the 50’s Wilson had quit readingnmost new writers and concentrated onna number of personal projects of dubitablenvalue. These projects were nonlonger concerned with literature andnwill prove to be of antiquarian interestnonly. What happened? Two things, Inthink.nFirst, as time went on, it becamenincreasingly clear that he had no compellingnimage or idea in his life, notn