Relatively little critical attention has been directed towards the explication of James Merrill's difficult poems, much less towards the understanding of his densely-layered symbolism. This is the first comprehensive study to look at Merrill's difficult symbolic system and to provide a close reading of Merrill's epic poem "The Changing Light at Sandover." Adams reads Merrill's poetry through various lenses, primarily those of Freudian psychology and of the Jungian archetypal system. His approach allows the reader to view individual works as part of the larger picture of Merrill's quest to...
Relatively little critical attention has been directed towards the explication of James Merrill's difficult poems, much less towards the understand...
This book develops alternative paradigms of literary realism with which to reexamine a group of crucial but marginalized twentieth-century writers who have been misread as conventional mimetic realists. Don Adams reveals how allegory, pastoral, and parable are used by these writers as an alternative to mimesis. By working in and through these devices, these writers created virtual-potential realities that relate to conventional actuality in complex and challenging ways.
This book develops alternative paradigms of literary realism with which to reexamine a group of crucial but marginalized twentieth-century writers who...
