'WHAT YOU SEE VANISHING': LANDSCAPES OF SELF IN THE POETRY AND PROSE OF W. S. MERWIN

W. S. Merwin's work is complex but responds to a consistant critical viewpoint derived in part from an examination of the entire canon and in part from a phenomenological reading of the poems. The purpose of this study is to provide access to Merwin's eleven collections of poetry and three of prose by a thorough reading of each of the fourteen works that lets Merwin speak for himself as much as possible; that is, the critical point of view develops from a thorough investigation of what appears to be most crucial. Equal attention is given to all three periods of publication, 1952-1960, 1963-1973, and 1977-1983.;Merwin's collections fall into thematic pairs and are studied chronologically, differentiated according to the prevailing landscape of self, constructs of identity which appear as the landscape of myth in Chapters I and II; of history in Chapters III, IV, and V; and of memory in Chapters VI and VII. This analysis of landscapes of self demonstrates a uniformity of theme in Merwin's works and provides a firm basis for further studies of a major American poet.;Merwin's poetry and prose can be seen as a series of landscapes of self which resolve or contain the question of identity central to the works. The struggle for identity, defined in terms of the dualities of presence and absence, takes place across what can be called "old ground," which Merwin periodically redefines: it is always, however, the ground of existence, the ground that all men travel in the archetypal journey, resolving itself into three major landscapes of self: myth, history, and memory. A line which stands as a summation of Merwin's work describes the working method in this paper: "Tell me what you see vanishing and I/ will tell you who you are" (MT, 93). We can best see what Merwin sees vanishing by studying the landscapes across which things and people vanish. To analyze his landscape of subtraction is to know what he is about.