SOURCE: “The Poetry of John Peale Bishop,” in Southern Renascence, edited by Louis D. Rubin and Robert D. Jacobs, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1953, pp. 368-91.

In the following essay, Stallman examines the contemporary influences of Ezra Pound, Archibald MacLeish, T. S. Eliot, and others on Bishop's poetry.

He who would do good to another Must do it in minute particulars 

—Minute Particulars

I

Paul Valéry, remarking on Poe's far reaching influence (from Baudelaire to Valéry himself), contends that the surest criterion of the value of poetic genius is a long descent of prolific influence, not the production of masterpieces. As late as 1936, T. S. Eliot was rejecting Milton on the grounds that “Milton's poetry could only be an influence for the worse, upon any poet whatever.” Reversing this stand in his recent British Academy lecture, Eliot no longer impugns Milton on grounds of influence: “The only...