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The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Contents

ARTICLES 

Edmund Spenser and the Question of Historical Truth  

Six Meditations on Letters 

The Constitutional Evolution of the Presidential Veto, 1776-1787  

John R. Commons and the Progressive Context 

The Tragedy of Citizen Humphrey 

The Great American Winking Jesus: Glances at Hyperrealism  

POEMS 

Shaman dreams dark houses  

Wolf's Dusk  

Fertility Dance 

Nebraska, It Was Nebraska And I Remember What Day Of The Week It Was 

Gothic  

Grid 

Lying In a Mound of Leaves  

Tuesday Morning  

going down into brown  

Promise  

Adopting the Moon  

Nasturtiums  

REVIEWS 

James B. M. Schick; Teaching History With A Computer: A Complete Guide For College Professors 

Victoria Garton; Kisses in the Raw Night: Poems  

Charles Hartshorne; The Darkness and the Light: A Philosopher Reflects Upon His Fortunate Career and Those Who Made It Possible 

Abstract

Chiding modern historians for a hidebound rigidity that blinds them to the truths that lie in historical fiction and poetry, JAMES A. STEVENSON argues that Edmund Spenser's history of Elizabethan times revealed less than his magnificent, but outwardly fictional Faerie Queen. Holder of a doctorate in history and a recently completed master's degree in English literature, Stevenson has published articles on history, film, and literature in a variety of academic journals, including an essay on Lincoln's affinity for Macbeth in The Midwest Quarterly. He is currently Assistant Professor of History at East Georgia College.

What did cavepersons do without letters? This is about the only question ROBERT WEXELBLATT fails to explore in his delightful ruminations on the whys and wherefores of letter-writing. Author of Life in the Temperate Zone, a collection of stories (1990), and soon to have a compilation of his essays, many of which first appeared in The Midwest Quarterly, published by Rutgers University Press as Professors at Play, Wexelblatt directs the College of Basic Studies of Boston University.

TIMOTHY PARKER BELLOWS, after graduating from Hobart College in the Finger Lakes, spent five years putting music groups together. Writing lyrics led to completion of the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1978. After several business failures, he returned to writing, teaching writing, and composing some music on a synthesizer.

NANCY BOTKIN graduated from Michigan State University in 1978 in English. She is currently working on a masters in liberal studies at Indiana University at South Bend.

PATRICK WORTH GRAY, who lives and writes in Bellevue, Nebraska, has been published in a number of magazines, including one poem previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

MARK HENKE holds a masters in theatre from Arizona State University. He has published poems previously in South Dakota Review, The Writer, San Jose Studies, and other journals. A short story of his is forthcoming in The Wittenberg Review.

KIP KNOTT is co-editor of The And Review, and has poetry published or forthcoming in National Forum, The Quarterly, and The Texas Review. He received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council for 1989-1990. He has published poems previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

JOYCE K. LUZZI is a freelance writer and editor in Rhode Island. She has published poems in The Laurel Review, The MacGuffin, Poem, and other journals.

SHERYL L. NELMS, originally from Marysville, Kansas, but now living in Texas, has published more than 2,700 poems in such journals as Kansas Quarterly, Cedar Rock, Spoon River Quarterly, Modern Maturity, and Readers Digest. She has published a chapbook ana three books of poetry, the most recent of which is Strawberries and Rhubarb (Peak Output Press). She was a Breadloaf contributor in 1982.

PHILIP TERMAN was the 1990 winner of the Rosenberg Award for Poems on the Jewish Experience. His work has appeared recently in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, The Laurel Review, and other journals. He teaches at Iowa State University.

DANIEL WILLIAMS resides on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in northern California. He has taught at several colleges, including Foothill College and Metro State College. His recent poems have appeared in The Widener Review, Seattle Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and other journals.

DEBORAH WOODARD has published poetry in The Antioch Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Carolina Quarterly, The Seneca Review, and other journals. She is currently working on her dissertation on the American female lyric and theories of masquerade at the University of Washington.

ANNE OHMAN YOUNGS has published poetry in several literary magazines, including Mid-American Review, Ball State University Forum, and The Third Coast. Her work has also appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly. Her chapbook Markers (Andrew Mountain Press) was published in 1988. She currently teaches writing at Northern Michigan University.

STEVEN SCHWEIZER links the veto power the Founders entrusted the President primarily to their experience with the state constitutions written after the break with Great Britain. Schweizer, a previous contributor to The Midwest Quarterly, teaches political philosophy at Benedictine College and is currently writing a book on the relationship between liberal education and democracy.

Seeking to explain the Progressivism John R. Commons manifested, ROGER HORNE finds his thought shaped not only by his own time, but also by his cultural roots in Calvinism, Civil War-era republicanism, Hoosier culture, and Quakerism. The present study is based on Horne's doctoral dissertation. He is presently seeking an academic appointment.

RALPH BRAUER offers a eulogy for Hubert Horatio Humphrey and for the politics of a generation so recently gone and yet seemingly so far distant from today's world of bland, attack ads, and sound bytes. A writer of fiction and non-fiction, he has published articles in national newspapers and newsmagazines. His focus on the impact of values on our lives has led to a recently completed project, "America versus the Media," and his current topic, "Devil's Bargains: Experimenting on the Dying."

"Read my hips," George Bush's self-parody of his short-lived "Read my lips. No new taxes" pledge, provides further evidence of the hyperreality ALLEN RAMSEY describes in his critique of the 1988 election campaign. Associate Professor of English at Central Missouri State University, he has published articles in a variety of disciplines, including rhetoric and composition, Renaissance studies, and· modem drama.

SHARON E. NEET teaches history at the University of Minnesota--Crookston, where she makes effective and profitable use of the computer in her classroom.

STEPHEN MEATS, besides being poetry editor of THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY and a poet himself, chairs PSU's English department and makes himself generally useful.

DONALD WAYNE VINEY, our good neighbor down the hall, teaches philosophy with verve and eclat.

The poetry editor is interested in receiving poems dealing with the European "discovery" of the Americas for a special issue commemorating the Columbus quincentennial in 1992.

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In accordance with database agreements, the full text of the issue is not available for download. Pittsburg State Digital Commons has only provided the front matter for author and publication information.

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