Lost in Translation | Evans Lansing Smith
In the following essay, Smith discusses the metaphor of the puzzle in "Lost in Translation" and how Merrill links the content of the poem to its form.
Evans Lansing Smith
In the following essay, Smith discusses the metaphor of the puzzle in "Lost in Translation" and how Merrill links the content of the poem to its form.
Putting broken pieces back together by the power of poetry is one of James Merrill's great themes. A good example is his wonderful poem "Lost in Translation," which uses the metaphor of the puzzle as an analogy for a traumatic childhood, marriage and divorce, the mysteries of reading and writing, and the creation and destruction of the world.
In the first stanza (a curtal sonnet), the...
[The entire page is 1291 words long]
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