Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Merrill, James (Vol. 18) - Edmund White

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EDMUND WHITE

In Merrill's verse there is … something curiously old-fashioned—at least at first glance. In his wielding of poetic forms, Merrill is masterful…. Like his mentor Auden, Merrill can be so conversationally civilized in these forms that only half way through them does the reader suspect the strictness of the design. (pp. 9-10)

Here's another way in which Merrill is old-fashioned: he never courts obscurity…. These are books of ideas (as well as of feelings, visions, people and personages), and the ideas are comprehensible. Whereas Eliot's ideas about tradition or Pound's economic theories are stated in clear, no-nonsense formulations only in their essays, the poetry acting as a dramatization (sometimes a fragmentation) of the thought, Merrill's epics are as straightforward as Pope's Essays. Nor are the cultural or scientific allusions in Merrill obscure….

Merrill has more trust in the transcendental power of language...

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1. Introduction
2. Helen Vendler
3. Edmund White
4. Judith Moffett
5. Peter Stitt
6. Clara Claiborne Park
7. Denis Donoghue
8. Charles Berger
9. Copyright