Word: olson
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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...COCK OF HEAVEN-Elder Olson -Macmillan...
That all flesh is as grass-and mostly crab grass at that-is a juicy writer's thesis that seems incapable of being squeezed dry. One of the latest literati to draw blood from this cosmic lemon is Elder Olson, a young, Byronic-looking assistant professor of English at Illinois Institute of Technology. His The Cock of Heaven is a long poem about the irremediable genesis, incorrigible exodus and appalling exeunt of the Goddamned, salvation-proof children of Adam. For purely literary excitement, it should rank as the poetic book-of-the-year...
...nauseated by his triumphant corruption of the world, prays God to put an end to mankind. Since Gabriel's first cockcrow, seven Messiahs have done their miraculous best to redeem mankind. But their efforts only went to convince Donne in the 17th Century-and only go to reconvince Olson in the 20th-"that to save this world God Himself must needs be born into it; and even then He can but make it worthy to be destroyed...
...Olson brings out the design and freshens up the colors of this faded legend by putting it under the spotlight of today; turns it into a surrealistic cyclorama of human fate. In the foreground the seven deadly sins of Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Lust, Avarice, Pride, Anger move like insatiable' ghouls through the golden haze of eternity. The background is left for the individual cyclorama-goer to fill...
Soul or no soul, as Olson sees it, man is nonetheless doomed...