Title: Last looks, last books
Subtitle: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill
Description: 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. 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 ... 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"--Publisher description.
Subjects: History and criticism, Death in literature, American poetry, American poetry, history and criticism, 20th century, Criticism and interpretation
Time periods: 20th century