Merrill, James (Vol. 3) - Merrill, James 1926–
Merrill, James 1926–
Merrill is an award-winning American poet, novelist, and playwright. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 13-14.)
James Merrill is an elegant, polished and witty performer of the old (i e, 1950s) American school. The two long poems that form his new book [Two Poems] show him in the guise of entertainer and satirist, manipulating the mandarin society of New England with mordant, po-faced relish.
"From Crag and Kitchen," in The Times Literary Supplement (reproduced by permission), September 29, 1972, p. 1146.
For Merrill, language is tortured and muscular, a labor that blossoms where body is bruised to pleasure soul (to reverse Yeats's line). But whether they wrestle with themselves or with a fact of the world, the contortions, the words like twisted muscles, seem to be struggling in a manner out of proportion to their content. It's like Charles Atlas...
[The entire page is 1475 words long]
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