{"product_id":"last-looks-last-books-stevens-plath-lowell-bishop-merrill-9780691145341","title":"Last Looks, Last Books: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eModern American poets writing in the face of death\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eLast Looks, Last Books\u003c\/i\u003e, 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 \u003ci\u003eThe Rock\u003c\/i\u003e, Wallace Stevens writes simultaneous narratives of winter and spring; in \u003ci\u003eAriel\u003c\/i\u003e, Sylvia Plath sustains melodrama in cool formality; and in \u003ci\u003eDay by Day\u003c\/i\u003e, Robert Lowell subtracts from plenitude. In \u003ci\u003eGeography III\u003c\/i\u003e, Elizabeth Bishop is both caught and freed, while James Merrill, in \u003ci\u003eA Scattering of Salts\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHelen Vendler\u003c\/b\u003e is the A. Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University. Her many books include \u003ci\u003eInvisible Listeners: Lyric Intimacy in Herbert, Whitman, and Ashbery \u003c\/i\u003e(Princeton), as well as studies of Shakespeare, Keats, Yeats, Stevens, and Heaney. She is a frequent reviewer for the \u003ci\u003eNew Republic\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, and other publications.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50674973737234,"sku":"9780691145341","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_489489b9-3d4b-48ca-b97d-25c37374510c.jpg?v=1733868435","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/last-looks-last-books-stevens-plath-lowell-bishop-merrill-9780691145341","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}