The Poetry of Madness

To the Editors:

I want to congratulate you upon Steven Marcus’s review of Milton Rokeach’s The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, not only for its own merit but more particularly because it elicited the anonymous letter in your July 9th issue. This letter is a great intellectual and human document. It conveys insights into the human mind, poetry, and philosophy, which one felt existed but which one had never seen clearly formulated before.

The author of that letter doesn’t need to “apologize for the inordinate length of this letter and perhaps also for its lack of clarity…” Considering the quality of mind and feeling it expresses, it isn’t long enough, and as to clarity, how much clearer it is than many a learned tome.

Hans J. Morgenthau

Center for the Study of American Foreign and Military Policy

University of Chicago