SOURCE: "Four Campus Poets," Thought, Vol. XXXV, No. 137, June 1960, pp. 230-33.

In the following excerpt from an essay, Green examines the political and moral elements in Viereck's poetry.

… No one could accuse this history professor of neglecting the contest outside college gates. Indeed, it becomes impossible to consider Viereck's poetry without reference to his prose, where he has wished to protect humanistic conservatism primarily through literature and philosophy. His concern for politics has been secondary because he never escaped his fear of it descending into a Realpolitik of brutalization. We may admire the sincerity with which liberals of older generations spoke their victory cry: "I wear no man's livery!" But the progression of values for which Nietzsche hoped, taking humanity beyond good and evil, has descended instead into a morass where one finds only devaluation. "Without the idealistic framework of ethical restraints," Professor Viereck wrote in Shame and...