The Sophist

<p><cite>The Sophist</cite> was first published by Sun &amp; Moon Press in 1987 and has been unavailable for well over a decade. A pivotal book for Bernstein, <cite>The Sophist</cite> demonstrated his great range of subject matter, style, and genre. By contrasting wildly different approaches to poetry, Bernstein not only questions the intrinsic value of any given form but also provides a model for his later heterogeneous books, including <cite>My Way</cite> and <cite>With Strings</cite>. If sophism is the opposite of both philosophy and the lyric, then <cite>The Sophist</cite> is model for a rhetorical poetry that interrogates truth in the name of reason.</p>