James Merrill's poetic career has moved steadily from accomplishment to vision; it is no extravagance to predict that his "sacred" books, when completed, will be regarded as a major poetic statement. But "sensational effects have subtle causes," Merrill once observed ("Pola Diva" in Braving the Elements), and the greatness of his recent work is best illuminated by the progress toward larger articulations that has been there from the start in this fastidious poet whose wit and playfulness no longer preclude openness or revelation.

Born in New York City, James Ingram Merrill attended the Lawrenceville School, and was graduated from Amherst College in 1947. For the past twenty-five years he has divided his time between Athens and Stonington, Connecticut, where he shares a house with his friend David Jackson. At the beginning, his poetry was recognized for its elegance, its rococo presentation of nacreous objects or fanciful scenes; subsequently, his...