Research Catalog

Title

James Merrill : postmodern magus : myth and poetics / Evans Lansing Smith.

Author

Smith, Evans Lansing, 1950-

Publication

Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, [2008], ©2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

vi, 268 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"One of the unique voices in our century, James Merrill was known for his mastery of prosody; his ability to write books that were not just collected poems but unified works in which each individual poem contributed to the whole; and his astonishing evolution from the formalist lyric tradition that influenced his early work to the spiritual epics of his later career." "In this meticulously researched, carefully argued work, Evans Lansing Smith argues that the nekyia, the circular Homeric narrative describing the descent into the underworld and reemergence in the same or similar place, confers shape and significance upon the entirety of James Merrill's poetry. Smith illustrates how pervasive this myth is in Merrill's work - not just in The Changing Light at Sandover, where it naturally serves as the central premise of the entire trilogy, but in all of the poet's books, before and after that central text." "By focusing on the details of versification and prosody, Smith demonstrates the ingenious fusion of form and content that distinguishes Merrill as a poet. Moving beyond purely literary interpretations of the poetry, Smith illuminates the numerous allusions to music, art, theology, philosophy, religion, and mythology found throughout Merrill's work."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Merrill, James, 1926-1995 > Criticism and interpretation
• Poetics

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-261) and index.

Contents

Overture -- 1. First Poems -- 2. The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace -- 3. Water Street -- 4. Nights and Days -- 5. The Fire Screen -- 6. Braving the Elements -- 7. Divine Comedies -- 8. The Book of Ephrairn -- 9. The Changing Light at Sandover -- 10. The Inner Room -- 11. Late Settings and A Scattering of Salts.

ISBN

• 9781587296963
• 1587296969

LCCN

40015759063

OCLC

• 226357368
• ocn226357368
• SCSB-5424757

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries