John Berryman's Life and Poetry - Essay Example

In a reflective analysis of The Dream Songs, one realizes the main concerns of the protagonist, how he represents the modern world and acts as an alter-ego to the poet. The poet has been effective in dealing with the delicate ideas and themes of his life and the modern world, through his protagonist. "Henry, speaking with all of Berryman's baggage--paternal suicide, shameless libido, drunkenness--is allowed to aggress and regress, throwing his anger, fears, and blasphemy up against Friend, a blank wall of therapeutic response To Henry, like Lord Byron's impetuous Don Juan, life is boring; however, Berryman's twentieth-century man resists rather than indulges." (Athey) In fact, the very theme and essence of the book is the treatise of the poet described through the protagonist.

"What Henry has said, Berryman tells us in the distancing third person, will make the very substance of The Dream Songs." (Mariani, xvii)