SOURCE: “Introduction: Life into Legend,” in Stanley Kunitz: An Introduction to the Poetry, Columbia University Press, 1985, pp. 1–48.

In the following essay, Orr provides an analysis of the recurring images and personal symbolism in Kunitz's poetry, drawing particular attention to the significance of legend, quest, and parent-child motifs related to the poet's search for self-identity and meaning.

When Stanley Kunitz' magnificent fourth book of poems, The Testing-Tree, was published in 1971, it was hailed by Robert Lowell on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. As Kunitz' books make their appearance, it seems inevitable that he will be generally accorded that status which he has long since earned in the eyes of fellow poets—that of a major poet of the dramatic lyric. Yet the immediate chorus of praise and the excitement in the literary world that greeted The Testing-Tree's appearance was followed by the relative...