Tesserae (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Denise Levertov
- First Published: 1995
- Type of Work: Memoir
- Time of Work: 1887-1993
- Setting: England (primarily London), Wales, Russia, Budapest, Provençal, Tonga
- Principal Characters: Denise Levertov, Paul Levertov, Beatrice Levertov, Olga Levertov
- Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir
- Subjects: Memory, Mythology or myths, Poetry or poets, Painting or painters, Jews and Gentiles, Ballet or ballet dancers, Gardens or gardening, Gypsies
- Locales: London, England, Russia, Budapest, Hungary, Wales, Provençal, Tonga
Tesserae are the individual fragments of glass, stone, or tile used to create a mosaic. In her memoir, Denise Levertov does not claim to have created a complete mosaic of her life but instead offers the reader a handful of fragments—“memories and suppositions”—written “from time to time . . . between poems.” Each of the “tesserae” presented here reflects light at a different angle to illuminate a portion of the path the poet’s life has followed.
Levertov has written elsewhere (in The Poet in the World, 1973) about her sense of life as pilgrimage and the...
[The entire page is 2082 words long]
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