Citation for 2007 Goodwin
Richard P. Martin, Chairman of the Committee
Let me begin by thanking my colleagues on the committee, Patricia Rosenmeyer and Denis Feeney, for their hard work and collegiality. Our review took into account nearly 200 books published over the last three years, many of them exciting and highly deserving. ItÕs never an easy choice.
ÒWhat do we expect from poetry?Ó ThatÕs the sort of basic but complicated question that practitioners of philology and criticism---many of us in this room-- would do well to ask more often. Peter Struck, the winner of this yearÕs Goodwin Award, chooses precisely this question to begin a fascinating exploration of how ancient thinkers confronted the mysteries of creative writing. In Birth of the Symbol: ancient readers at the limits of their texts (published by Princeton University Press) he offers answers that can illuminate and enrich our own professional lives.
From its classical use designating a token for authenticating contracts, to a marker of the most profound secrets hidden in creative art, the symbolon, in StruckÕs account, emerges as the single most important concept behind allegoresis, the Òother speakingÓ employed by a variety of readers seeking to unravel texts from Homer onward. Where did this vital concept come from? Divination, Pythagoreans, mystery cult, initiatory formulae, dream interpretation--all probably had a role to play. Gold tablets, the practice of theurgy, the Derveni papyrus--all of these Struck convincingly brings to bear on his story. Moonstones, Apis-bulls, and incandescent philosophers--these are just a few of the strange sights along the way.
In many regards, the book is a salvage operation, and a model for such recoveries. The massive weight of the dominant rhetorical tradition still threatens to obliterate other ancient interpretive strategies. Struck brilliantly shows that Cornutus and Sallustius, Chrysippus and Pseudo-Dionysius deserve as much air time as the big names usually taken to represent so-called literary criticism--Aristotle, and Co.. Most strikingly, Struck resuscitates the literary-critical thought of Proclus, gaining for that author, if not a place on graduate reading lists, then at least his rightful spot in the sun. Somewhere a 5th century Neoplatonist is that much happier tonight.
If it takes a sophisticated and intense book like this to question what we expect from poetry, the answer to what we expect from the APAÕs award winner is simpler: crystalline writing, magisterial learning, presence and voice and important things to say. For all of these, we are proud to present the 2007 Goodwin Award to Professor Peter Struck of the University of Pennsylvania.