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The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Contents

Articles

Canadian-American Relationships

The First Supranational World Government

An Interview with Aldous Huxley

Quest for Identify: Jews and the American Dream

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as Picaresque

Verse

Head of a Young Boy by Roualt

At Twelve That Night

Crazy House Clown

Of Reeds and Rain

Rendezvous

Observed Near Jericho

Treatise

Figure and Room

Yes with a whip

Sir, Aren't You Getting Rather Gray?

That Old Poet

Breakfast on the Train

Abstract

in this issue. . .

INITIALLY we had ambitious, even extravagant, plans for this spring number, plans involving a variety of essays from key members of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as well as a carefully selected covey of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. Quite obviously, the Congress has been busy of late, although its business is not always as fruitful as many would hope. And that New Hampshire primary on March 10 rather alters calculations regarding the GOP standard-bearer for 1964. In mid-February one of the (then) leading (?) candidates in that primary wrote in response to an editorial request for a statement suitable for publication in these pages: ". . . I think it is too early to forecast the campaign issues. I think we will have to wait until after this session of Congress has been concluded and the national conventions have selected their tickets." In retrospect, our instantaneous reaction to this statement as irresponsible and irrelevant seems to have been premature.

TREATING topics of current import, we long since concluded, is at best a tricky business, but one subject seems never to receive anything like the attention it deserves in the generality of United States publications, public and private. We were, therefore, immediately enthusiastic when JOHN MANNING of Michigan State University sent down a lengthy but extremely illuminating discussion of current U. S.-Canadian relations. Many of our readers will doubtless recall his excellent analysis of the Columbia River power project which we published two years ago. Associate professor in the department of humanities at East Lansing, Dr. Manning is a Canadian by birth and education whose primary field of interest is, quite understandably, Canadian-American relations.

THE WORLD is so full of international problems arising, for the most part, from that complicated phenomenon we call nationalism that for very many years statesmen, poets, and scholars have longed for some international agency, indeed government, which might impose its power and authority over competing nationalisms. Seldom, however, have advocates of world governments bothered to place their desires in historical perspective. This is curious since, prior to the emergence of modem nationalism at the end of the Crusades (and its luxuriant growth in the nineteenth century), the Papacy did serve effectively as an international authority in the temporal as well as the spiritual sphere. Medievalists and political theorists will at once recall the doctorine of the two swords. EDMOND P. ODESCALCHI was born in Hungary and has been a refugee from Communism since 1945. Convinced that the apex of nationalism is past, he became interested in the history of supranational organizations while studying political science in post-war Germany. He holds the master of arts degree from St. Andrews University in Great Britain and is an editor with International Business Machines Corporation in Poughkeepsie, New York. He is the author of numerous articles, mostly of a scientific nature, published in Science Education, School Science and Mathematics, The American Biology Teacher, and other journals in the United States and abroad.

KANSAS is frequently referred to as "Mid-America," and Topeka enjoys an international reputation as the center for psychiatric study and treatment. Still is it a curious coincidence that in Topeka four years ago two men, one from Germany and the other from England, were brought together by a mutual interest in the Hindu classic, the Bhagavad-Gita. It can even be said that what brought the two together was an article in the first issue of THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY. One of the two was HANS BEERMAN, author of that article, "Hermann Hesse and the Bhagavid-Gita." The other was Aldous Huxley, whose death last November 22 was completely eclipsed by the brutal assassination that afternoon of President John F. Kennedy. While it is probably too early to evaluate Huxley's contribution to literature and philosophy, he has already been recognized as one of the world's leading minds and most prolific writers, a man "able to give us some insight into ourselves in this confused world." Given the opportunity, our peripatetic Professor Beerman interviewed Aldous Huxley and developed the article here published from shorthand notes. Until contrary evidence is adduced, we present it as the last interview ever granted by that strange, shy, sensitive, wise man. Professor Beerman continues his world travels as one of twenty Fulbright Fellows to participate in a three-month Institute on Indian Civilization this summer at the University of Mysore, India.

HARDY PERENNIAL of American literature is the quest for identity, whether the writer be Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway, or J. D. Salinger. Last January's issue of Harper's included an article by Rabbi Adler attempting to identify the Jews, and letters appearing in Harper's for March indicate both approval and disapproval of his discussion. Somewhat at variance with the rabbinical point of view is that of ROBERT N. HERTZ whose autobiographical discussion may shed a new kind of light on this much discussed problem. Mr. Hertz did graduate work at Cornell University and teaches American literature and American Civilization at Rutgers. He has published articles, commentaries, and reviews in The New Republic, The American Scholar, The Colorado Quarterly, and The Minnesota Review, among others. The second of his papers on foreign students in the United States appeared in last month's Phylon, The Atlanta Journal of Race and Culture.

ANOTHER HARDY PERENNIAL of American literature is Huckleberry Finn, and several generations of American scholars have spent years of time, oceans of ink, and reams of paper analyzing the boy and his creator, Mark Twain of Hannibal, Missouri. Comes now CHARLES R. METZGER, associate professor of English at the University of Southern California, to argue persuasively that Huck is a pícaro. Professor Metzger has written on Emerson Thoreau Whitman, and Stephen Crane; some of our readers will recall his analysis, "Realistic Devices in Stephen Crane's 'The Open Boat" in our autumn issue of 1962.

NEW POETS, at least new to this journal, provide fifty percent of the twelve poems appearing in these pages. The other five names will be familiar to many of our readers. Somewhat out of our usual run is LEONARD S. BERNSTEIN of Westbury, New York, who manufactures children's wear and has been writing with some consistency for almost a year. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he specializes in political and social satire. His work has appeared in The American Bard, The Green World, Phylon, and The Wall Street Journal. . . . JACK BOBBITT, assistant professor of English at the University of Missouri at Rolla, is a Buckeye graduated from the College of Wooster in 1959 with a master of arts from the University of Missouri in 1951. Currently he is completing doctoral requirements in English there. His publications include three anthologies of short stories from The Press of the Crippled Turtle (Columbia, Missouri), as well as articles in Cairn and The London Times Literary Supplement. In 1955, Houghton Mifflin published Exercises in English: A College Workbook on which he collaborated. Besides working as editor for General Electric's Technical Publications Division, he taught at the University of Missouri and at Eastern Montana College before coming to Rolla in 1962. . . . GORDON GILSDORF has a degree in English from Marquette University and for ten years has been head of the English department at Sacred Heart Seminary, Oneida, Wisconsin. His previous publications include American Weave, Arizona Quarterly, The Carolina Quarterly, Fiddlehead, Four Quarters, and The Western Humanities Review. . . . Only woman among our six new contributors is PATRICIA LAMB of Houston, Texas, where she received the bachelor of arts at the University of St. Thomas. Her poetry has appeared in The Commonweal and The Carolina Quarterly and has been accepted for publication by The Transatlantic Review. Two manuscript books of her verse are now seeking suitable publishers. . . . ALBERT W. VOGEL, assistant professor of English education at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, has published a verse play, short stories, and poetry; articles on teaching English and the indoctrination of English teachers in the USSR; professional articles on English teaching; and critical articles on Salinger, Hesse, and Poe. Anticipated publications include articles on Snow and Durrell as well as additional poetry and fiction. He is also -a photographer whose work has appeared in art quarterlies. . . . JAMES WORLEY, a native of West Virginia, works as a public school teacher in Columbus, Indiana. He has been writing for just over two years, and his poems have been accepted by Prairie Schooner, New Mexico Quarterly, American Weave, Midwest, The Lyric, Quartet, The Western Humanities Review, Hawk and Whippoorwill, and Phylon. Like Miss Lamb, he has a manuscript of poems ready for publication.

THE OTHER FIVE whose work we publish here should be fairly well known by now. JOHN CLARKE teaches English at Green Mountain College in Vermont and first appeared in our last (January) issue. . . . Poems by A. D. FREEMAN of Wellesley, Massachusetts, have appeared in THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY in two earlier issues. . . . EMILIE GLEN of New York City is a frequent and favorite contributor to our pages. Chat Noir Press of Chicago has recently published her Laughing Lute and Other Poems, to be reviewed in our next issue. . . . Once again we present two poems by MYRON LEVOY of Rockaway, New Jersey, whose work was included in our issues for July and October last year. . . . FRED MOECKEL of Naugatuck, Connecticut, contributed "Lantern Flowers,'' to our autumn issue last October.

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