"I search for meaning, studying to remember / what the
world was, and meant. Therefore I try / To reconstruct it in a dying
ember": Sources of Inspiration
|
 |
Notebook entry, September 1963-January 1964
Gunn's notebooks list sources for his poems. In this entry, titled
"Volume I of notes for For the Survivor," Gunn lists as
sources for "Misanthropos" works of great variety, both
from a span of historical periods and from disparate genres.
|
 |
Notebook entry, September 1963-January 1964
This entry, "A First Draft of the Series as Series," is
one of several drafts illustrating Gunn's arrangement of "Misanthropos"
that also includes a dedication to Don Doody, an American friend and
Tony Tanner, a Cambridge (UK) critic. Tanner and Gunn met at the University
of California, Berkeley, where Gunn was a faculty member when Tanner
was a visiting scholar on a Harkness Fellowship. Many of the themes
and ideas in "Misanthropos" were influenced by Gunn's discussions
with Doody and Tanner.
|
 |
"The Book for the Survivor: Misanthropos, Last Notebook,"
January 1965
Gunn consulted with Tanner as he wrote "Misanthropos." In
this draft of a letter to Tanner, Gunn responds to Tanner's criticisms
and sends a new version of the poem for Tanner to review.
|
 
|
