Merwin, W. S.

Merwin, W. S. (William Stanley Merwin), 1927–, American poet and translator, b. New York City. After graduating from Princeton in 1948, he traveled in Europe, working as a tutor and studying romance languages, a period described many years later in his memoir Summer Doorways (2005). Merwin is noted for his restrained, spare, sometimes remote, often elegiac, and always finely wrought verse, which frequently focuses on nature and expresses an overwhelming sense of loss. His many volumes of poetry include A Mask for Janus (1952), The Moving Target (1963), Lice (1967), The Carrier of Ladders (1970; Pulitzer Prize), Opening the Hand (1983), Selected Poems (1988), Travels (1993), The River Sound (1999), The Pupil (2002), and Migration (2005). Merwin is also well known for his translations, among them The Cid (1959) and The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes (1962).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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