James Merrill est célébré pour sa poésie complexe et souvent mystique, explorant des thèmes du spirituel, du domestique et du rôle du poète dans la vie contemporaine. Son style distinctif allie maîtrise formelle et vision aventureuse et expansive, notamment dans ses ambitieuses œuvres sérielles qui abordent le surnaturel et la nature de la conscience. L'écriture de Merrill met les lecteurs au défi de considérer l'intersection de l'ordinaire et de l'extraordinaire, en employant une voix unique à la fois intellectuellement rigoureuse et émotionnellement résonnante.
With the Stage Adaptation, Voices from Sandover
James Merrill's most renowned work returns to paperback, showcasing his exceptional literary prowess. This celebrated piece captures the essence of his poetic genius, inviting readers to explore its intricate themes and rich language. The book's enduring appeal lies in its profound insights and masterful storytelling, making it a significant contribution to contemporary literature.
This collection showcases the correspondence between a renowned literary master and a prominent letter writer of the twentieth century. The letters reveal deep insights into their thoughts, creative processes, and the cultural context of their time. Through their exchanges, readers gain a unique perspective on the art of writing, personal relationships, and the evolution of literary ideas, highlighting the enduring power of the written word in an increasingly digital age.
For the first time in a stand-alone edition, the acclaimed poet's classic poem about his communication with Ephraim, a guiding spirit in the Other World, is here introduced and annotated by poet and Merrill scholar Stephen Yenser. "The Book of Ephraim," which first appeared as the final poem in James Merrill's Pulitzer-winning volume Divine Comedies (1976), tells the story of how he and his partner David Jackson (JM and DJ as they came to be known) embarked on their experiments with the Ouija board and how they conversed after a fashion with great writers and thinkers of the past, especially in regard to the state of the increasingly imperiled planet Earth. One of the most ambitious long poems in in English in the twentieth century, originally conceived as complete in itself, it was to become the first part of Merrill's epic The Changing Light at Sandover (1982), the multiple prize-winning volume still in print. Merrill's "supreme tribute to the web of the world and the convergence of means and meanings everywhere within it" is introduced and annotated by one of his literary executors, Stephen Yenser, in a volume that will gratify veteran readers and entice new ones.
James Merrill once called his poetic works 'chronicles of love and loss', and in twenty books written over four decades he used the details of his life - comic and haunting, exotic and domestic - to shape a compelling, sometimes intensely moving, personal portrait.