even a strongly held philosophicalnpoint of view—except to have none.nHe was left at the mercy of his ego,none more instance of the bankruptcynof modernism. And while he was annuncompromisingly professional writer,nwhat did he have, then, to be uncompromisingnabout? Honesty to his ownntaste, which is not a little thing in ournera, but not ever much of a big thing.nEven his vaunted hard realism isncalled into question by the IRS affair.nIs it possible that a former editor oiThenNew Republic would forget to pay hisntaxes for nine years and be surprised tondiscover that taxes were used to pay fornnational defense?nWhat is the nature of his legacy? Atnbest, he provided an example of what andetermined reader and an excellentnwriter can do for our understanding ofnliterature by using the historical/nbiographical bias. Many of his finenessays still remain (and will for somentime) as points of reference. But hennever did understand the world’s inviolatensadness, the tragic view of life.nSecond, he played Johnson to himselfnplaying Boswell. He wanted it bothnways. He had cast himself in the rolenof Johnson, which gave him what hisnfriends at once recognized as authority,neven early on. But Boswell, henheld, was the true creative genius, thenrole he wished to play as time went on.n(Delmore Schwartz said that Wilsonnthought he was Henry James.) Whatnhe had not accomplished with hisnnovels and plays, he was determined tonpull off with his journals, which givenus a portrait of Wilson watching Wilsonnwatch himself in the mirror.nIn Portrait of Delmore: J939-J959nwe have a like phenomenon; the dustnjacket features a posed photograph ofnSchwartz looking at himself in thenmirror. He was from first to last thenhero of his own life. The journalsncontain notations, single words, andnsentences highlighted by their isolation,nfragments of poems, stories, andnessays, notes to himself, dreams, dates,nlists, social calendars, records of hisndrinking and pills taken, much nonsense,nand in boldface a self studying anself Near the beginning he notes thatnall great men are insane and at thenending he is haunted by fears of madness.nOne is strongly tempted to see innhim what his early commentators sawnin Hart Crane—a svmbol of whatnAmerica does to its poets. There are nonsecond acts; romantics do not surviventhe assault of experience. But bothnCrane and Schwartz knew better. Inntheir lucid moments both knew howninner the destructive urge was.nDelmore Schwartz was reputablenand talented. Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’snGift is a memorial to him.nRobert Lowell’s Life Studies has anpoem to him. John Berryman devotedn10 elegiac Dream Songs to him, “thenyoung man/Alive with surplus love.”nKarl Shapiro named him the “touchstone”nof his generation of confessionalnpoets. Publishers have served himnwell: Everything he wrote has been putninto print. Yet, he is not much readnnow; many find his life, as symbolic,nmore interesting than his work. Somewhatnreluctantiy (remembering poornNijinsky), I will engage in a postmortemnand confront the questionnSchwartz himself asked about RingnLardner, “why so successful and giftedna human being suffered so much andnso helplessly.”nAlthough he knew that “the absolutenwill of the ego” must be subjectednto the testing of reality, he could/nwould not do this seriously or for overna period of time. He was maturenenough to know that doing “what younreallv want to do means that vou arennnwilling to take the responsibility fornwhat you have done once it is done,”nbut he could not act on this thought.nLiving directiy as a pagan and with nonsense of community, he could notnengage himself in reality, true as henknew it was, when it stretched out itsnhands to him. “We are all forever/lostnand/alone,” History was most of thentime, he felt, a nightmare which intrudednon his special sense of selfngiving him an epic case of insomnia.nOne of his friends remarked (and hencopied it in his notebook), “Delmore isnselfish—he wants to be loved beforenhe loves anyone.”nHe was a tragic paradox. On the onenhand, his selfishness was huge andnuncompromising. But on the other,nmore’s the wonder, he never knewnwho he was. For whom was he makingnthis incredible effort of will? Yet, despitenthis, he remained convinced fornyears that his life could be the base fornan epic drama. “The self is a story.” Innreality, a sustained work about his ownnlife was impossible. His most famousnwork, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,”nends precisely where he, beingnborn, would have to accept responsibilitynfor himself “I wished for theninnocence of my stars and my stonesnand my trees,” but seeing through thenglass darkly he was shown instead “mynOCTOBER 1987 129n