James Merrill | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 33 pages of analysis & critique of James Merrill.

James Merrill | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 33 pages of analysis & critique of James Merrill.
This section contains 8,696 words
(approx. 29 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by J. D. McClatchy

SOURCE: “Monsters Wrapped in Silk: James Merrill's Country of a Thousand Years of Peace,” in Contemporary Poetry, Vol. IV, No. 4, 1982, pp. 1-30.

In the following essay, McClatchy studies the elusive poems of Country of a Thousand Years of Peace.

Eight years elapsed between James Merrill's First Poems (1951) and the publication of The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace, the longest interval between any two of his poetry collections. During that time Merrill made two important moves. One, his change of residence from New York City to Stonington, a traditional Connecticut seacoast village, was a kind of strategic withdrawal and resettlement that had decisive repercussions on his work, though not until Water Street (1962) does a more domestic focus prevail. The other move, an elaborate and prolonged trip around the world, is more immediately apparent in The Country of a Thousand Years of Peace. The literal extravagance of Merrill's...

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This section contains 8,696 words
(approx. 29 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by J. D. McClatchy
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Critical Essay by J. D. McClatchy from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.