The Broken Home (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: James Merrill
- First Published: 1965
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric sequence
- Subjects: Parents and children, Sex or sexuality, Poetry or poets, 1920’s, World War I, Suffrage or voting rights
“The Broken Home” uses a unique form, a combination of seven different types of sonnet, to explore the meaning of family in the life of a child. The first sonnet is unrhymed and begins with the apparent genesis of the poem: He is going home one night and sees a family through the windows of the apartment above his. He goes to his own room and, trying to read a book of maxims, asks if his lonely life has any value.
The second sonnet, written in pentameters and rhyming abba cddc effe gg, talks about his father's world. His father had two goals—sex and...
[The entire page is 760 words long]
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