LEADER 03774nam 2200709Ia 450 001 9910458986003321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-282-53149-2 010 $a9786612531491 010 $a1-4008-3432-5 024 7 $a10.1515/9781400834327 035 $a(CKB)2670000000009444 035 $a(EBL)485805 035 $a(OCoLC)609856436 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000362333 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11243961 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000362333 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10362412 035 $a(PQKB)10041139 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC485805 035 $a(OCoLC)609873756 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse36589 035 $a(DE-B1597)446854 035 $a(OCoLC)979579284 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781400834327 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL485805 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10367229 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL253149 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000009444 100 $a20090928d2010 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aLast looks, last books$b[electronic resource] $eStevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill /$fHelen Vendler 205 $aCourse Book 210 $aPrinceton, NJ $cPrinceton University Press$d2010 215 $a1 online resource (165 p.) 225 1 $aThe A.W. Mellon lectures in the fine arts ;$v2003 225 1 $aBollingen series ;$vXXXV, 56 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 $a0-691-14534-2 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tAcknowledgments --$t1. Introduction: Last Looks, Last Books --$t2. Looking at the Worst: Wallace Stevens's The Rock --$t3. The Contest of Melodrama and Restraint: Sylvia Plath's Ariel --$t4. Images of Subtraction: Robert Lowell's Day by Day --$t5. Caught and Freed: Elizabeth Bishop and Geography III --$t6. Self-Portraits While Dying: James Merrill and A Scattering of Salts --$tNotes --$tThe Andrew W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1952-2007 330 $aIn Last Looks, Last Books, the eminent critic Helen Vendler examines the ways in which five great modern American poets, writing their final books, try to find a style that does justice to life and death alike. With traditional religious consolations no longer available to them, these poets must invent new ways to express the crisis of death, as well as the paradoxical coexistence of a declining body and an undiminished consciousness. In The Rock, Wallace Stevens writes simultaneous narratives of winter and spring; in Ariel, Sylvia Plath sustains melodrama in cool formality; and in Day by Day, Robert Lowell subtracts from plenitude. In Geography III, Elizabeth Bishop is both caught and freed, while James Merrill, in A Scattering of Salts, creates a series of self-portraits as he dies, representing himself by such things as a Christmas tree, human tissue on a laboratory slide, and the evening/morning star. The solution for one poet will not serve for another; each must invent a bridge from an old style to a new one. Casting a last look at life as they contemplate death, these modern writers enrich the resources of lyric poetry. 410 0$aA.W. Mellon lectures in the fine arts ;$v2003. 410 0$aBollingen series ;$vXXXV, 56. 606 $aAmerican poetry$y20th century$xHistory and criticism 606 $aDeath in literature 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aAmerican poetry$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aDeath in literature. 676 $a811.509 676 $a811/.5093548 700 $aVendler$b Helen$f1933-$0291362 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910458986003321 996 $aLast looks, last books$92442913 997 $aUNINA