James Merrill boasts an immaculate portfolio of plays, essays, and his specialty, poetry. The formulaic and rigorous works of his earlier career have evolved into profound explorations of the personal psyche sculpted by his subjective interaction with the world. In analyzing Merrill's poems, I observed his particular rapture with the particularities of life. Throughout his works, Merrill demonstrates an innate fascination with the passage of time, revisits the concept of loss, and often engages in self-reflection. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One innocuous concept that Merrill often attempts to explore in his work is the passage of time. Interpret and use passing time as a transitional device to reveal the truth or act as a harbinger of change. A staunchly arrogant mirror turns into a crumbling, submissive mess who succumbs to jealousy in the Mirror. Time serves as an element to sustain the degradation of the ego: it begins as a simple crack and develops into irreparable fissures that threaten the structural and moral integrity of the mirror. The golden mirror, once confident in its abilities to reflect and satisfied with the attention it receives, becomes a broken shell of its former glory lying in the shadow of the venerated window. The time jump, evident in “Years Later Now,” serves as a progressive element that emphasizes the longevity of envy's paralyzing effects. I witnessed a time warp in Black Swan, where a moment in time is extended throughout the structure to create an immersive, reality-controlling subset intended to alter the senses. A child observes a black swan crossing a lake, but as he does so Merrill takes the opportunity to define the wisdom and symbolism that the mystical bird possesses. The water of the lake serves as a symbol of the passage of time and the way in which the living pass through it, represented through the swan wading in its gentle waves. What happened in an instant seems to continue for years and allowed a character in the poem to undergo a spiritual change. Time is more of a vague construct explored in Manos Karastefanes. The entire structure of the poem boasts a chronological progression of time evolving from childhood to later stages of life, a sensible method of organizing thought. While this is a basic structure, this provides a basis of understanding from which the resulting events will eventually unfold: for example, it is explicitly mentioned how the narrator was taught "heaven and hell" by a friend's mother childhood, and later experienced contrasting events that varied. from the horrible war to the recovery. “Heaven and Hell” is a comparison that is late juxtaposed with the appearance of “War and Peace,” a novel whose title serves as an ironic but pointed comparison to echo two polar opposites who rely on each other for existence. Time is an element that allows events to be consequential; of cause and effect in this poem and how it maintains the tendency to repeat itself. Loss is a universal experience shared by all, but maintains individuality through the many coping mechanisms that exist. Merrill revisits the myriad of objects, people or concepts that are susceptible to loss and their subsequent effects on the spirit. The mirror, as discussed above, revolves around a selfish mirror whose qualities mimic its physical purpose: to represent appearance. The reflective surface, once safe, experiences abandonment and corrosive jealousy because the window attractsthe unconditional attention of children. Years later, the grandchildren, recently grown into adults, exclaim: “How superficial are appearances!” which is a jarring, mirror-cutting statement. By criticizing appearance, they have effectively diminished the purpose of the mirror and therefore it itself experiences a loss of ego and form. The mirror breaks and crumbles from a once pristine image, "as if a fish had broken the perfect silver of my reflexivity", which are outward representations of his crumbling ego and its depreciation. Black Swan explores loss through both a child's loss of innocence and the symbolism that exists in the Black Swan itself. The seemingly dark supernatural beast summons a boy, who has "white ideas of swans", to the lakeside. The "white swan ideas" suggest that the child only believed in the existence of a holy world and was still undefiled. However, at the conclusion of the poem, the young man is trying to reach the unattainable bird, crying out "I love the black swan", which represents his fall from purity as he succumbs to the seduction of the mysterious feathered demon. Merrill also explicitly states the waterfowl's understanding of loss, citing how they have "learned to enter the lost secret center of grief." The black swan serves as a symbolic entity of universal knowledge: an omniscient form capable of tightly coiling the threads of pain within itself and existing with the infinite cold pain that hovers within them. Likewise Manos Karastefanes revisits the concept of lost innocence through the death of the protagonist's father. Twelve is not the optimal age to reach adulthood, but by inference the character in this poem has become responsible as a necessity. The father in particular traditionally exists as the head of the family and so, with his death, the boy was forced to abandon his childhood in exchange for strength. The minor inevitably becomes a young man serving in the military. Experience with large amounts of violence paralyzes the human condition, evident through the outward physical wounds suffered by the boy-turned-soldier. The last shreds of innocence have been torn away by the atrocity of war. Merrill advantageously uses his art as an opportunity for self-reflection. While his early work mostly consisted of bland formulaic content, he delved into the most abundant resource of insight he possesses: his mental catalog of life experiences. Merrill's personal fascination and experience in Greece emerge in Mirror, through the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus. Similar to the attractive but insolent young man, the mirror is punished for his arrogance by meeting a crumbling death at the hands of his own ego. The inclusion of this allusion serves to strengthen Merrill's belief in the truth within the Greek myths, particularly in how they possess revelations of human nature. A more deeply personal reflection is witnessed through the window that embraces “an entire world without worrying about putting it in order”. Transparent glass allows for a literal view of the rest of the world that preaches awareness and receptivity, a perspective a little beyond Merrill's privileged reach during his early years. Black Swan presents an impersonal contemplation focused on the impending events that would bombard a young Merrill until he assumed a mature mindset. The swan can be interpreted as an assumption of all the author's sorrows and complaints which would soon come to usher a then ignorant Merrill into a world of insights. A notable source of corruption and change for Merrill was his service during the Second World War..