The Changing Light at Sandover (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: James Merrill
- First Published: 1976
- Type of Work: Long poem
- Genres: Poetry, Epic, Lyric sequence
- Subjects: Creation myth, Twentieth century, Ghosts or apparitions, Poetry or poets, New England, God, Death or dying, Spiritualism, Afterlife, Occultism or the occult, Reincarnation, Light, Angels
The Changing Light at Sandover is one of the more remarkable poetic works to have been published in the West since T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922). Its genesis is interesting enough: James Merrill and his lover, David Jackson, had been experimenting with a Ouija board with little result when, one day in 1955, a spirit named Ephraim answered the ritual question: “Who's there?” After a long time conversing with Ephraim, Merrill decided to take the notes he took from their “conversations” and turn them into a poem. The resulting work, “The Book of Ephraim,”...
[The entire page is 1492 words long]
Navigate
- The Changing Light at Sandover (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
- The Changing Light at Sandover (Masterplots II: Poetry Series)
- The Changing Light at Sandover (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
See Also:
- Add The Changing Light at Sandover to your favorites