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Abstract

Don W. King's book covers these matters, tied to interests of the Mythopoeic Society, but they are just part of the biography. Since King's book is the first full treatment of Pitter 's life and works, it becomes automatically the basic authority on Pitter- and, indeed, the book is substantially done, as one might expect from the author of CS. What King has done is go through Pitter's life, narrating it, with pauses to summarize and evaluate a substantial number of her poems from each of her books as they appear. Pitter and her friend basically were women whose possibilities for husbands were killed in World War I; Pitter seems to have had some love affairs while living in London, but no marriage resulted. (According to W.H. Lewis's diary, they dined in "the New Room"; W. H. Lewis is cited by King for some details in the endnotes.) CS. Or, likelier, now we dream of space, Lewis's dread sublime Pillars of light, no limbs, no face, Sickening our space and time? (That last line is supposed to have only three beats, so she is writing a dactyl followed by two iambs.) She also did a version of The Great Dance, at the end of Perelandra, in Spenserian stanzas (never collected in her poems but appearing in Appendix 1 of King's CS.

Details

Title
HUNTING THE UNICORN: A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF RUTH PITTER
Author
Christopher, Joe R
Pages
167-171,187
Section
Reviews
Publication year
2008
Publication date
Fall 2008
Publisher
Mythopoeic Society
ISSN
01469339
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
749942523
Copyright
Copyright Mythopoeic Society Fall 2008