and their poems more than eompare with any you care to men-nHon, probably because they recognized divine inspiration whennthey saw (or felt) it. This unavailable dream is found in a widelynavailable book called “the Bible.” I would rather read aboutnNathan rebuking King David with a storj’ or about the receptionnof the Prodigal Son than about “President” Clinton pardoningnMarc Rich at the behest of the Israeli government.nMore wisdom than the Knesset hath Solomon, and bitter is thenfruit thereofnIf politics, culture, and religion make more sense in reversenorder, then perhaps we can apply the principle witii more focusnin regard to the art of writing. We live a world in which the craftnof writing is more recognized than ever before, if we can believencollege catalogues; yet, when we look for examples of the art, wenare driven into the past. Certainly, fine work is being done today,nbut it is not so easy to find. Vliat is easy to find is lousynwork, which is marketed in large part as a direct personal expressionnof the author, and the “author” is usually her glossynphotograph—the younger the better. In other words, you arenasked to buy the person as packaged in a book. So we arrive atnthe literary cult of personality, and the first thing to say about itnis that never before in history have the personalities been suchnfeeble ones. I do not think that writing should ever have beennocculted in personalit)’, but it has been for a long time, long beforenmodern conditions of trade or corporate publishing ever existed.nWriting began to rot as soon as it was first inscribed. Thenperfect example is Homer (if he existed). Homeric procedurenis fabled for its “objectivity,” which noble souls have desirednto recover ever since it was lost. Yet Homer is subjective ornself-referential in his invocations, and perhaps even in his brilliantnpicture of the court of King Alkinous, in which the bard ornrhapsodist Demodocus performs his epic function within thenpoem. Even so. Homer is “objective” here because he put thenepic poet in his place and insists that, at times, the hero couldnfulfil! the function of the epic poet, eloc|uence being a manly attribute.nThis pattern is repeated in the anonymous Beowulf,nwhich shows something about the folk mind of prehistoric Europenin the good old days before sliced bread.nNo sooner had Homer put down his lyre than the imitators,nparodists, and academicians took over. Ever)’ imaginable corruptionnof writing had already occurred in Greek by the time ofnAlexander. “Modern literature” may be said to have begun withnthe poems of Archilochus, who was, I think, the first man in histor)’nto write autobiographically, and we owe more to the Greeknromances than we should. Postmodern literature surely existednin the works of the hilarious Lucian of Samosata, who hadneverybody’s number—including ours.nThe Romans had many gifts, but literar)’ invention was notnone of them. Juvenal’s satire stands alone for its severity and purit}’neven today, but the modern-seeming pathos of Vergil, Catullus,nand Horace is far removed from the glories of Greek poetry—thoughnnot so far as we are. Veneration of Homer wasnnever personal, but the cult of Vergil always was, and Catullusnand Horace—their brilliance notwithstanding—seem to us likenpeople we have known. That is the mark of the declension intonthe cult of personality, and the only prescription for recover)’nfrom such a condition would be a recursion into barbarism and,nwith it, a healthy return of primitive integrity and objectivity, asnin Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland, the Nihelungenlied, andnthe Icelandic sagas. Alas, romance soon followed, and many antear was shed. Dante Alighieri wrote a grand poem of mysticalnarchitecture, harmonizing passion and reason in an uncannynbalance, the likes of which we have never seen again. He putnhimself into his poem from the beginning, and has been the objectnof a cult of personalit)’ ever since. The rough genius of Villon,nhowever impressive, features a lot about Villon.nMoving rapidly along our literary timeline, we find a fraudulentn”rebirth” looming. Cervantes wrote the first, best, and lastnnovel before dying on the same day as Shakespeare, renderingnfurther fiction unnecessar)’; for this we thank him (and his humility).nHis humor objectified the subjective, as he split himselfnin two and, changing horses in midstream, found himself ridingnRocinante (as Lionel Trilling once put it). Cervantes evadedn”personalit)'” by dissolving it in pages imbued with a keen awarenessnof the gap between the written word and experience. As fornShakespeare, some still question whether he wrote his works—anmark not of a problem but of his matchless impersonalit)’, whichnafforded him the properties of a chameleon. In an age of religiousnstrife and political treachery, there is no word from himnabout ideolog)’ and every word of imaginative projection. Asnshook the spear, so fell the staff leaving us with a magnificentnvoid as far as personality goes, and an unparalleled achievementnas far as writing is concerned. Naturally, this lesson was ignorednand reversed, as with the curiously empt)’ cult of Bardolatr)’, andnsuch insults as the lamely literal Shakespeare in Love. Will is justnone of us, after all; for today, that is all a writer can be. But Willnnever sought publication in the modern sense, though he didntread the boards. His admiring superior, Ben Jonson, did wrapnhimself in a book. (Poor Ben—so proud of his master’s degree.)nW’riting is a kind of engineeringnor design that gets easilynconfused with the person who did thencrafting-a mistake that no one wouldnmake with a bridge or an airplane.nAbout John Donne, I will only say that a man who couldnpreach a sermon in his own death shroud exhibited a humilit)’nthat is notable. In some ways, the greatest personalit)’ in the historynof English literature is John Milton. You cannot tell himnfrom his syntax (or his diction), and that is what I call a writer.nBut those days are gone.nThe greatest personalities and writers of the “long Eighteenthncentury” were such losers as Swift, Pope, and Dr. Johnson, whonwould not have allowed a representative of our culture (Defoe)nthrough the front door. Dean Swift has a reputation for madnessntiiat is directiy related to his lucidity, as much a matter ofnideology as of style, but let us face it: Saeva indignatio is just notngood public relations. Pope is full of tension because his brilliancenis in conflict with his values; Samuel Johnson, even morenso. The subject of the greatest of biographies, Johnson strugglednto subordinate his personality to his belief in general truth andnin piety. (Poor Sam—so proud of his honorary doctorate.)nThe 18th century was the last time that a writer or egomani-nnnJUNE 2001/17n