Anthony Hecht

David Mason replies:

Professor Donoghue needn’t pretend his ability to write has faltered in the least from what it was in the 1970s. I myself have written glowingly of several of his recent books, and I continue to admire his work. In this case, however, he protests too much. My review is not of his criticism, but of Anthony Hecht’s letters, and my sentence merely paraphrases Hecht’s own reaction to Professor Donoghue’s review of Millions of Strange Shadows. In a letter to his editor Harry Ford (March 25, 1977), Hecht said the review “was a little bit like being publically disemboweled.” Writing two days later to W. D. Snodgrass, he mentioned “being clobbered by Denis Donoghue in The Times.” The point of my review was that a friendship or mutual admiration had apparently evolved in subsequent years, and the letters left much of this story to a reader’s imagination.

To read the original letter, click here.