John berryman's life and poetry

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)