SOURCE: "The Post-Symbolist Methods," in Forms of Discovery: Critical and Historical Essays on the Forms of the Short Poem in English, Alan Swallow, 1967, pp. 251-97.

Winters was an American critic, poet, short story writer, and editor who emphasized that all good literature necessarily serves a conscious moral purpose. In his best-known critical work, In Defense of Reason (1947), Winters stated: "I believe that the work of literature, in so far as it is valuable, approximates a real apprehension and communication of a particular kind of truth." Momaday, who studied under Winters while at Stanford, has noted that Winters greatly influenced his writing. In the excerpt below, Winters offers an analysis of "The Bear," "Buteo Regalis," and "Before an Old Painting of the Crucifixion," placing Momaday's work within the Post-Symbolist tradition.

I use the term "post-Symbolist" to describe a kind of poetry which develops most commonly and most clearly after...