Anthony Hecht

To the Editors:

In his article on Anthony Hecht (The New Criterion, April 2013), I am afraid David Mason has read my prose with a carelessness it does not deserve. He calls my review of Hecht’s Millions of Strange Shadows scathing. That review was published in The New York Times Book Review of March 27, 1977. I have read it again. Any careful reader would see that the review, far from being scathing, is reverent, as in the presence of a master of a certain style, a poet sensitive to the cost of achieving such a style. My second impression, reading myself after thirty-six years, is: I wish I could still write like that.

Denis Donoghue
New York

To read David Mason’s response, click here.