Berryman's Henry

Book excerpt: Berryman's Henry: Living at the Intersection of Need and Art offers scholars and students the first thorough and well-researched vehicle into John Berryman's epic poem The Dream Songs. Through a close reading of the text, an examination of the history of its criticism and some of Berryman's letters, notes, and pertinent manuscripts, Sam Dodson offers the reader a solid starting point to appreciate the presiding structure and thematic focus of this American classic. This structure, resulting from the poet's crafting and the poem's internal growth, is illustrated in the text by more than thirty reproductions of some of the Dream Song drafts in progress. No existing critical work examines anywhere near the number of individual Dream Songs as this reader's guide, which will enable students and teachers to enter Berryman's difficult poem with confidence and a proper sense of direction. Its purpose is to provide the beginning reader and the scholar with a map for approaching this large work and finding their way through its elegiac structure and appreciating its unity. A close look at the poem's language and stylistic innovations, epic qualities and author's poetics, and most especially the elegiac movement of the poem, will allow even the novice reader to enter Henry's world. The elegies as a whole provide the note of mourning that is at the core of Berryman's epic.