Books &Arts
American poets

54. Serious engagement
Nov 20th 2008 From The Economist print edition

54-1-244
THE easy flow of letters between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, two of America's greatest 20th-century poets, began in 1947, and continued for 30 years. It was a correspondence, from first to last, of an unusual intensity.
Although they were both New Englanders, their writerly temperaments were quite different. Bishop wrote and published her poetry slowly. She produced just three collections during her lifetime. She was sedulous, pernickety, quietly determinedshe would work on poems for years. Her lettersmodels of gentle, hesitant statementhave something of those same qualities of tentativeness, restraint and minute attention. Her observations of the natural world are acute and fresh, but also objective, reaching beyond herself. The sound of the ego is turned well down.
Lowell was much more prolific and more raucously in and of the world. His private life was tumultuous, his manic episodes legion. His observations of the world reflect his inner moods: charged, noisy, dramatic. The long-awaited 2003 edition of his collected poems runs to almost 1,000 pages. Bishop's collected poems is one-quarter of that length.

A. 어휘
engagement 참여, 서약, 약혼. correspondence 交信(교신). intensity 강렬함.
writerly 작가적인. cf. 명사(writer)+ly→형용사. temperament 기질.
collection 作品集(작품집). sedulous 끈기 있는, 근면한, 지칠 줄 모르는.
pernickety 까다로운. determined 굳게 결심한, 단호한. hesitant 주저하는.
hesitant statement 주저하면서 하는 말.
tentativeness 망설임, 일시적인 것, 실험(시험)적인 것. restraint 억제, 조심, 구속.
minute 미세한. acute 예리한, 격렬한. objective 객관적인.
reaching beyond herself 자신을 초월하여. turn down 물리치다, 거절하다.
prolific 多作(다작)의, 多産(다산)의. raucously 목이 쉰 소리로, 귀에 거슬리게.
in and of the world 세상 안에서 그리고 세상에 대해서.
tumultuous 시끄러운, 소동을 일으키는. manic [정신의학] 躁病(조병)의, 미친.
legion 多數(다수), 보병군단.
charged 감정이 激昻(격앙)된, 열정적인, 帶電(대전)한. one-quarter 1/4.

B. 구문
- his manic episodes legion→his manic episodes were legion.
[그의 광적인 에피소드는 무수하였다.]

54-2-245
They were never lovers, and although the much-married Lowell once considered proposing to Bishop, he never did. And yet the two admired each other more than they admired any other living poets and corresponded with an unusual seriousness of engagement. When Lowell wrote to Bishop he was, for once, not involved in an act of performance. When Bishop wrote to Lowell she knew that she was reading his poems more deeply, and with more responsible attention, than any other friend would ever dare to do. They knew no betterand no more fearlesscritics than each other.
Throughout his life, Lowell was a professional man of letters, who, as teacher and reviewer, stood at the centre of the literary world. Bishop, by contrast, often felt as if she were slightly lost, floating through a miasma of self-doubt. She moved around a lot. She spent 15 of her most productive years in Brazil and came to teaching late in her life. Socially tentative, she did not make waves in the world of poetry. Her reputation has grown, quietly, since her death in 1979. It was Lowell who was the roaring, self-lacerating, tragic king of the poetry jungle.
These letters are full of delightfully acute observations about literary personalities and tell us much about the art of poetry in Americahow poets think, behave and suffer. But the literary talk is constantly being interrupted by the smaller things of life and these wonderfully human documents are an appealing mix of the bookish and the everyday. Their turns of phrase are so savoursome they almost precipitate into poetry itself.
From beginning to end, the two poets needed each other. 'Please never stop writing me letters,' Bishop once wrote to Lowell. 'They always manage to make me feel like my higher self.'

A. 어휘
for once 한번만. admire 숭배하다, 감탄하다.
act of performance 연극활동. dare 두려워하지 않고 하다. letters 문학.
reviewer 평론가, 비평가. by contrast 대조적으로. slightly 輕微(경미)하게.
be lost 길을 일어버리다. miasma [늪지 따위에서 나오는]毒氣(독기).
tentative 망설이는. socially tentative 사회적으로 잘 나서지 않는.
roaring 고함지르는, 으르렁거리는.
lacerate 감정을 상하게 하다, 갈기갈기 찢다. interrupt 방해하다, 중단하다.
appealing 사람을 끄는, 호소력이 있는. the bookish 문학적인 것, 책에서만 얻는 것.
the everyday 일상적인 것. cf. the+형용사→추상명사.
phrase 어구, 말씨. savoursome 風味(풍미)가 있는, 재미있는.
precipitate into 거꾸로 떨어뜨리다, 뛰어 들다.

B. 구문
- When Lowell wrote . . . an act of performance.
[Lowell이 Bishop에게 편지를 쓸 때는 한 번도 연극을 하지 않았다.(솔직하였다.]