Original artwork, not a still
The Web and the Rock • 1939
There had been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous — and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman, now, and the man was gone.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Wolfe describes poetic genius shifting from a young, doomed man to a woman. The old picture was the tragic, famous poet dead too soon. He says that romantic role has changed hands in this passage.
Context reviewed
