Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. 1. Introduction: Last Looks, Last Books 1
5. 2. Looking at the Worst: Wallace Stevens’s Th e Rock 25
6. 3. The Contest of Melodrama and Restraint: Sylvia Plath’s Ariel 47
7. 4. Images of Subtraction: Robert Lowell’s Day by Day 70
8. 5. Caught and Freed: Elizabeth Bishop and Geography III 94
9. 6. Self-Portraits While Dying: James Merrill and A Scattering of Salts 117
10. Notes 143
11. The Andrew W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1952–2007 149