4 'Exiles & Marriages' An Exceptional First Book RUSSIA A GRAND TOUR r 4U, 15I I I l1IUAIN UAISY MAGALI'NE The Universities Have Played a lig Part In Its Growing Acceptance Among Americans j (Continued from Page 9) His dogs will whimper through the webby barn, Where spiders close his tools " in a pale gauze And wait for flies..'.. When next October's frosts harden the earth, And fasten in the year's catastrophe, The farm will lie like driftwood, The farmer dead, and deep in his carved earth. THIS IS indeed a poem of mar- riage; the poet finds affirmation and direction in the experience of grief: I number out the virtues that are dead, Remembering-his soft consistent voice That sharpened on the difficult to tell, His honesty, his subtlety, and most, The bone that showed in each deliberate word. There is no exaltation of the dead; the vision evoked is one of a bare and dignified horiesty: Another rank of virtues was his trade's, His working love of animals and land- No rhapsodies, but hands that shaped and made Domestication of the wilderness.... The poem itself is a fusion of the values Hall ascribes to his grandfather with the qualities which characterize his own best poems, for the bare bone of each deliberate word does show, and domestication is but another npme for making form of chaos "by DONALD HALL choice ... with every act" in "an age of choice and discontent / Whose emblem is 'The difficult to choose'." It is Hall's way of driving life into a corner. Exiles and Marriages is not free of flaws and Hall's chief one lies, I think, in his use of wit, although most critics have praised it. At times Hall's wit happens in bril- liant, well-turned flashes: Poetical Philander only thought to love: He went to bed with what the girls were symbols of. I learned in a vision a secret that nobody knows: Criticism must be at least as well written as prose. At other times what is lighted by the flashes is less the substantives of the poems than the-poet himself whose technical facility will bear repeated scrutiny before his wit invites- a second reading. "Six Poets in Search of a Lawyer" and "The Body Politic" are clever- once. NEITIftR of these poems pro- duces the pleasant .discomfort of self-recognition, but an almost embarrassed silence. One sees a poet grimly determined to amuse a society uncertain that it needs any poetry at all. Perhaps a great- er sense of detachment between poet and poem would have made a difference. The other alternative would be a greater indignation or fury than seems consistent with. Hall's other, better poems. Wit is irresponsible in immediate effect, for producer or perceiver, what- ever its end; to lack the irresponsi- bility places the poet dangerously near didacticism on brief effect. Such a personal stricture on Hall's poems of wit ought not de- flect any reader. His fine lyric gift is repeatedly shown in poems that are personal without being pri- vate, that are never maudlin or popular in the bad sense. "Carol," "September Ode," "New England November," "Jamaica," and "The Sleeping Giant," are other fine poems that plead for quotation entire. There can be no doubt that Donald Hall is a poet with high human qualities who cares not only about poetry but about life as well: I pray for time and place To shape my changing face And loose intelligence By will to excellence, So that from death will be Preserved some part of me. In hate of death I make These words for my own sake. The art of poetry does not ask more dedication of its maker, nor the art of living greater confirma- tion. (Continued from Page 15), and flourescent colored socks at close-out sales in the United States and re-selling them in Moscow. His only problem then would be deciding what to do with the rubles. New buildings on the outskirts of Moscow house the technical and scientific departments of the University. Here is one of the. great showplaces for tourists. At- tention is automatically focused upon the main building. Its. 26 floors contain lecture rooms, lab- oratories, libraries, student living- quarters, and even accomodations for some of the professors. Our Intourist guide told. 'us that all lectures and discussions were re- corded. In this way, he said, if a student misses his class,' he can go to the library and listen to, what occurred. He neglected to point out the "1984" effect upon open discussion.- The big showplace is, of course,' the Kremlin. In a sense this is. the center of Russia's Disneyland' The museums and gardens with- in the walls of the Kremlin are open as long as the visitor takes care not to step outside the p ain t ed white lines on the grounds. The guards did not stand out unduly, for by this time we- were accustomed to seeing so many men in uniform. Lew Engman, who graduated from the University last year (Le majored in economics) was Student Government Council treasurer and one of the two Honors Convocation representa- tives last year. He is presently studying in London, England. THE CLIMAX of the tour was the visit to the mausoleum. There Lenin and Stalin lie in state. It is only open for two hours a day and fantastic num-, bers of people begin to line up early every morning. There were many foreign delegations with wreaths of flowers and tears in their eyes. Thre were also thous- ands of Russians. As "capitalist tourists" we apparently had spe- cial priority for we were brought to the head of the line. Inside it was cool - the only place we visited,,in Russia which was air-conditioned. The sight of their former leaders lying in a re- markable state of preservation and nearly close enough to touch must have a tremendous psycho- logical impact upon the people. Even Joe Stalin looked benevolent in a stern sort of way. It was im- pressive. Throughout our trip the Rus- sians were good hosts. The "red" carpet was rolled out for us but even the Russians couldn't fabri- cate one that was big enough to cover up everything. The fact remains that it is a country of contrasts. Shabbily dressed people ride in glass-topped buses or-.through subway stations lined with marble. To an Ameri- can visitor they look strange against a background of brightly gilded fountains in a park. But the young rebel from Mos- cow University who thought that most of the people Just don't care appeared to be right. By West- ern- standards, the level of liv-. ing is pitifully low. But there are ,the promises of tomorrow embod- ied in the great showplaces: And most people seem to be eating. Apparently for some men, espe- cially those with a background ofr hardship and war, this is suffi- cient. If it is, it is a foreboding manifestation of the power of Big Brother., By HARRY DUNSCOMBE PERA WAS, in the first place, an accident. Like so many in- ventions that turn out to be some- thing entirely different from what the inventor intended, it bega-i as an attempt to revive ancient Greek. -drama. Instead, the small group of Florentine artists and philosophers created a new form. Where they set out to produce drama they pro- duced a hybrid art which came to be dominated by music rather' than drama or the dance. As one might expect, an art of such manifold complexities pre-m sents many problems to those who practice it and those who enjoy it. In an age which tends toward cal-- lousness and disbelief, an age which which is sometimes cynical and unfeeling, opera tends- to be ridiculed, for it : is by definition, like even the most representative' of the arts, unrealistic. For some, the fact that we don't go around singing arias to each other in our daily lives is a serious deterrent to the appreciation of opera. Also, opera, like symphony or- chestras, ballet and drama, is-ex- pensive, 'though the problem is perhaps a, bit more acute, since opera requires the services of so many groups at once. This factor is especially discouraging to the American business genius who may conclude that- if it can't make money, then it isn't any good.' FOR CENTURIES the secular arts were pastimes for the pow- erful and wealthy, especially the more complex and therefore more expensive arts. When opera was born, about the year 1600'in Italy, it quite naturally was a thing so- licited and paid for by the nobil- ity. Indeed, for years an opera was a thing to be produced on some great occasion and then to be put -'away and forgotten. It was under this sort of patronage that .opera grew from its beginnings to the art we now know. Thus allkover Europe, opera, through a long, patient" process,, became rather deeply rooted in the life of the people, even'though it was made possible by the-riches of the high-born. The gradual de- velopment of democratic thought and the final overthrow of autoc- racy did not destroy it. Where the new democratic governments as- sumed an obligation to the cultur- al life of their various peoples, opera was included. And so opera became a natural part of the European democratic tradition. The responsibility for cultural life did not become. an integral part of. our government as it did in Europe; therefore we cannot count on state support for opera, theater, and ballet. Consequently, for years we had only one professional opera company in all the United States --the Metropolitan Opera Associa- tion of New York, and even this group has not been without its difficulties. But in the last few years the- situation has b e e n changing rapidly. A snowballing movement' has already brought opera to millions and revived in- terest in the form--an interest closely connected with the aca- demic community. IN EUROPE the great universities were never called upon to con- cern themselves with anything outside of their particularly schol- arly pursuits, for the life of the student was easily r o u n d e d through the multiplicity of cul- tural activities he found roun'd about him every day. As a result, European universities still treat the arts only in a scholarly fash- ion; artistic skills are taught in conservatories or schools. On the other hand, because of the dearth of artistic endeavor around them, American schools were compelled from the beginning to provide as best they could for the cultural development of their students. Consequently, schools of fine arts were directly incorporated into universities, which now confer even the highest degrees in the applied arts. In the past few years, however, opera has shown a far more than normal activity in the .academic community. Opera workshops have sprung up everywhere, producing everything from isolated scenes on a bare stage with a piano for accompaniment- to the most ela- borate productions of complete operas. In many schools opera de- partments which began as cul- tural adjuncts to a university have now b e c o m e operatic training schools of professional caliber, and are beginning to turn out artists who will doubtless find "EJ * KINESCOPING a scene from Act IV of "Aida" at the University Mattfield as Amneris and the eh( their places In professional opera somewhere in the world. SUCH HAS BEEN the case in Ann Arbor. In the Temporary Classroom Building one can see posters advertising operatic pro- ductions which date far back into 'the history of the University and the School of Music. In 1952, Prof. See OPERA, Page 15 QI i --r. _ -' m. Dream prettiesi Schrank's excius Orlon, Cotton, C It's the ANN ARBOR CLOTHING your RICHMAN BROS. CLOTHING STORIl in Ann Arbor . .........::.:: .. :..fig V- \V f .. / y " V l . ff Styled -8y , . " ~--.' . ,, a f s MILKMAID LIPSTICKS introduce an exciting SNEW COLOR r' r'"t I " ' >:< - - ,,;,, 47 1 r ^i: l SUITS ..........$39.95 - $44.95 SPORT COATS ...$24.95 - $29.95 TOPCOATS .......$39.95 ZIP COATS ....... $44.95 The same clothing sold nationally at the same low prices acclaimed by experts as the best on the market for style, quality, and price. I I We also have a complete line of IVY polished cotton trousers at $4.95 and $5.95I The Miracle Foam $.898 each HOWEVER, things took place somewhat differently in the New World. The exploration and settlement of North America took place during the growth of demo- cratic ideas in Europe so that when a government was formed there, it partook immediately of a demo- cratic traditionfostered in a place where the struggle for survival had tended to displace all activities of leisure and to levelsoff social stra- ta, depriving the arts of their noble patronage. Thus America was endowed with all the equipment necessary to become a great nation in many ways, but was spared centuries of struggle toward democracy which might have-permitted the devel- opment of a native artistic tradi- tion. We have rather assimilated the already existing 'European tra- dition and