This Composite Voice

"This is one of those rare--increasingly rare--studies of a major poet that is a MUST, a book that must be read by anyone who wishes to appreciate better either the brilliance of Merrill or the dynamics of poetic influence at its best. Bauer's incomparable sense of Merrill's engagement with both the fire and the vacillations of Yeats makes lines one might have thought too baffling or merely witty emerge rich, strange, urbane, complex, and luminous." -- Leslie Brisman, Karl Young Professor of English, Yale University

"Mark Bauer's study of the influence relation between W. B. Yeats and James Merrill is illuminating, eloquent, and marked by authentic insight into both these great poets. As a demonstration of critical scholarship, Bauer's book is exemplary. It will be of permanent use to all readers of Merrill's work.

." -- Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University