Browse Items (206 total)

Notebook pages showing the first title of and early notes toward the pivotal, experimental, multifaceted poem "The Thousand and Second Night," which was based partly upon Merrill's Bell's palsy experience. These notes capture Merrill's uncertainty…

"Days of 1964" was published in Nights and Days. Included here are two typescript draft pages (of a total thirty-two manuscript pages) with holograph corrections, drafts, and sketches. The poem documents his life in Greece and love for Strato…

This typescript draft page (one among 265 draft pages) centers on James Merrill comforting Psyche (and himself) over her (and his) realization of the limitations of love and self-knowledge. "From the Cupola" was published inNights and Days.See also…

"Under Libra: Weights and Measures," published in Braving the Elements, was dedicated to David McIntosh. Included here are two corrected typescript drafts of the poem. Through this seemingly impersonal poem Merrill realized, with the help of his…

"The Will," published in Divine Comedies, contains the first mention of Ephraim in a poem, as well as the first time he speaks. In it, Ephraim explains why the novel draft was lost twice--implying that he was involved.

Holograph and typescript fragments toward and three full drafts of "Self-Portrait in a Tyvek Windbreaker." A play on John Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror," and published in A Scattering of Salts, it is one of the longest poems of…

A three-page draft of an unfinished, untitled poem from winter 1992 addressing Elizabeth Bishop. It is an "uncharacteristically awkward" but powerful poem about "raw life" prevailing over "graceful art."

"Tony: Ending the Life," published in A Scattering of Salts, is an "expansive elegy for his friend" (Tony Parigory, who died in summer 1993 of AIDS), "and (it is all but explicit) himself." Merrill had been largely silent about his AIDS diagnosis but…

“A la Recherche du temps perdu: Impressionism in Literature” was James Merrill's senior thesis on Proust from Amherst, 1946. At 106 pages, it is by far Merrill's longest piece of literary criticism and his most scholarly production. Merrill…

National Book Award Acceptance Speech for Merrill's first NBA, for Nights and Days. There was a sideshow at that year's ceremony, with a large group in the audience walking out in protest of the Vietnam war when Hubert Humphrey spoke.