Last Looks, Last Books: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill (The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.22 (999 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0691145342 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 168 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-03-27 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The solution for one poet will not serve for another; each must invent a bridge from an old style to a new one. With traditional religious consolations no longer available to them, these poets must invent new ways to express the crisis of death, as well as the paradoxical coexistence of a declining body and an undiminished consciousness. In The Rock, Wallace Stevens writes simultaneous narratives of winter and spring; in Ariel, Sylvia Plath sustains melodrama in cool formality; and in Day by Day, Robert Lowell subtracts from plenitude. Casting a last look at life as they contemplate death, these modern writers enrich the resources of lyric poetry.. In Geography III, Elizabeth Bishop is both caught and freed, while James Merrill, in A Scattering of Salts, creates a series of self-portraits as he dies, representing himself by such things as a Christmas tree, human tissue on a laboratory slide, and the evening/morning star. In Last Looks, Last Books, the eminent critic Helen Vendler examines the ways in which five great modern American poets, writing their final books, try to find a style that does justice to life and death alike
Vendler makes an especially important case for Lowell and thus provides readers a new means of appreciating these late poems."--Stephan Delbos, Prague Post"Last Looks, Last Books is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the five poets' aesthetics and can thus be useful for both scholars and students as a source of new insights on these oeuvres, as well as for those interested in the interaction of death and artistic creation."--Boglárka Kiss, Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies. Vendler, long a tastem
Helen Vendler is A. Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University.
This is a terrific book. Prof Charles M. Bleiberg This is a terrific book. Prof. Vendler reaches the heights of insight and transporting prose. Each essay has a personal feeling to it.. A gifted look at last looks Reading these essays on Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, and Merrill is like sitting right in the classroom with a wonderful teacher. In fact, they were originally presented as lectures (the 2007 Mellon lectures at the National Gallery of Art). In them, Vendler examines the distinctive style th. Richard Scott said Another tour. I got this when I ordered the new Emily Dickinson review.For any level of reader the discussions are great, opening up new vistas either in discussion of meter and construction or review of literary precedents used or known by the poet.For one long out of the field these are great reintroducti