Several scholars see similarities between Merrill and W. H. Auden. Look at some of Auden's poems in Collected Poems (1991).

Divine Comedies (1976) also contains The Book of Ephraim, another of Merrill's celebrated poems.

Merrill's epic poem The Changing Light at Sandover (1982) has themes similar to those of “Lost in Translation.”

For a comparative study of American poetry, read Richard Howard's Alone with America: Essays on the Art of Poetry in the United States since 1950 (1980).