When The Kenyon Review accepted my essay “On Not Being E. B. White (Fall 2010, 86-92), I was delighted. I’ve always felt a connection with this magazine. I spent the first half dozen years of my life in Mount Vernon, three miles from Gambier, where Kenyon College has capably taught the liberal arts to students since 1824. My heroes of close textual reading in the now shadowed New Criticism were early editors and contributors of the Review. Cleanth Brooks was born in the town where I spent most of my teaching life, and he graciously accepted several of our invitations to come and talk. One of my dearest friends, Edith Perry Wylder, went to Kenyon during the heyday of the New Critics.
But then the thrill was tempered by the editor’s suggestions for cuts and changes. I thought “Who wouldn’t want to write like E. B. White?” a reasonable question to ask in my essay; the editor thought not. But I rarely argue with editors; in my experience they really do want to make my prose better, they are giving me a careful, engaged reading by a professional, and they are almost always right.
That's good to hear. As a writer, I sometimes struggle with identity versus perfection. Co-writers, producers and the like, offer their thoughts on songs that can be constructive, but it can still be difficult to hear.
ReplyDeleteGlad to know a "Lion of Letters" goes through the same struggles that I do.
I really enjoy your blog.
Jace