SOURCE: The Consuming Myth: The Works of James Merrill, Harvard University Press, 1987, 367 p.

In the following excerpt, Yenser explores the themes, imagery, and structure of Merrill's Late Settings and his verse drama The Image Maker.

Divides and rejoins, goes forward and then backward. 

Heraclitus (trans. Guy Davenport)

“What next? What next?” 

Manuel in The Image Maker

The sun sets, and songs are set, and lines of type, and precious stones. “Setting” also signifies surroundings, and scenery—and on the one hand an ambush, on the other a table laid for guests. “Late” too has its range of meanings: “toward the end,” yes, but also “very recent,” as in “late developments.” So while Late Settings can indicate compositions done late in life, or the world's last twilights or suppers, it can also refer to recent contexts, or to newly mounted gems—or to full summer days. The phrase creeps...