Merrill's 1967 Journal

Passage from Merrill's 1967 Journal, from Langdon Hammer,  James Merrill: Life and Art (p. 422. (See Manuscript 7 for a similar passage.) 

“Matinées” wittily describes the growth of this singularity. In summer 1967, he drafted this piece of it:

The soul, no doubt, is feminine,

Does not forge swords or use them— or at worst

Drives a dagger into its own breast.

The soul enters smiling through the din

Of a cheap dining room, a Marschallin

All noble proud forebearance, dressed

As one who means to love + suffer must [sic]:

Her ostrich fan, her trailing ice-blue satin.

 The soul Merrill pictures is more passive than pacifist, inclined to self-destructiveness rather than aggression. He calls it “feminine” because it is costumed as the aristocratic heroine in Strauss or Proust who exerts power through chilly, “ice-blue” elegance. This is not a conventional basis for human sympathy. “Matinées” argues, however, that opera’s arch poses and exaggerated gestures reveal something basic about the common human condition. 

 ~~

Drafts of " Matinées " do not appear in the 1967 Notebook (JNL 58, 1964: February 15 - 1967) in Special Collections, Washington University Libraries. Hammer appears to be quoting from the 1967 Notebook at Yale University Libraries:

Guide to the James Merrill Papers

Collection Contents

3. July 2006 Acquisition

Request Box 12

MS notebook, including poems, "Matinees," and "To My Greek," 1967