The Idea Of Herman Melville In A

The Very Best Of All Merwin: I Have Been Reading William Since 1952, And Always With Joy.

But In The End, In The End One Is Alone. We Are All Of Us Alone. I Mean I'm Told These Days We Have To Consider Ourselves As Being In Society... But In The End One Knows One Is Alone, That One Lives At The Heart Of A Solitude.

No One Yet Has Managed To Be Post-shakespearean.

We Read Not Only Because We Cannot Know Enough People, But Because Friendship Is So Vulnerable, So Likely To Diminish Or Disappear, Overcome By Space, Time, Imperfect Sympathies, And All The Sorrows Of Familial And Passional Life.

No Poem, Not Even Shakespeare Or Milton Or Chaucer, Is Ever Strong Enough To Totally Exclude Every Crucial Precursor Text Or Poem.