Saturday September 9, 2006

I bought this book today at an estate sale.  It is a third edition copyright 1943.  This one was reprinted July, 1947.  It is printed on the thin almost newsprint paper that was used during W.W.II. (because of war time restrictions) This copy was evidently used as a text book as the pages are full of handwritten notes in pencil.  "Selected and Edited by Gerald DeWitt Sanders and John Herbert Nelson".  The book is signed inside by a Sig. Gretzner of Wayne, Michigan.  I assume he was the original owner and the person who hand wrote the text inside. There was a business card used as a book mark inside.  "Metalmasters Manufacturing Co.".  I believe it was marking page 546 and 547.  On page 547 starts "The Dinner-Party" by Amy Lowell. 

I bought this book simply because it had poetry in it.  I have a growing collection of poetry books. Then I found this outline hand written in pencil at the beginning of the book.

I am here giving you the text of the outline handwritten on the inside front cover of the book. Some of the handwriting is difficult to decipher.  A person almost has to be a cryptanalyst in order to read it. 

The outline is titled, "Essentials fact about the man as a man".  I have "corrected" the title a little bit.  Also a lot of the "points" in the outline should be questions.  I have punctuated it as it was in the original. 

This outline is probably the questions that "one" is supposed to ask oneself when reading the poetry inside this book.  Modern readers of this outline would consider it "sexist", especially since there are at least four women poets included in this book.  This text uses "man" as an all inclusive noun.  At the time this was written, that was perfectly good grammar. I guess it is "sexist" under the modern way of looking at things.  I do have this idea in my mind that in 1947, women were not all that common as students at Oxford or Cambridge.  I don't remember when they were allowed to get full degrees from Oxford.  But then you have to understand also, the context in which this outline was written.  It was probably written by a man, Sig. (Sigmund?) Gretzner.  If he was in college or university, he was more than likely in a class full of male students--- men returning from W.W. II.  Then to top it off, his professor or teacher was also probably a man (male person).