Lost in Translation (poem)
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"Lost in Translation" is a narrative poem by James Merrill (1926–1995), one of the most studied and celebrated of his shorter works. It was originally published in The New Yorker magazine on April 8, 1974, and published in book form in 1976 in Divine Comedies. "Lost in Translation" is Merrill's most anthologized poem.
Background
Merrill wrote in his lifetime mainly for a select group of friends, fans and critics, and expected readers of "Lost in Translation" to have some knowledge of his biography. Born in New York City, Merrill was the son of the founder of
Given that his parents were often preoccupied, his father with
Not only is "Lost in Translation" a poem about a child putting together a jigsaw puzzle, it is an interpretive puzzle, designed to engage a reader's interest in solving mysteries at various narrative levels.
The poem is dedicated to Merrill's friend, the distinguished poet, critic, and translator
Epigraph
Unusual for Merrill, the poem bears a mysterious four-line epigraph in
- Diese Tage, die leer dir scheinen
- und wertlos für das All,
- haben Wurzeln zwischen den Steinen
- und trinken dort überall.
In
- These days which, like yourself,
- Seem empty and effaced
- Have avid roots that delve
- To work deep in the waste.
Synopsis
At the simplest narrative level, "Lost in Translation" described a young boy (Merrill) eagerly awaiting the arrival of a wooden jigsaw puzzle, assembling it with his governess, then breaking it apart and mailing it back to the puzzle rental company, while retaining one piece of the puzzle in his pocket. Inspired by Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat quatrains, Merrill describes the puzzle's image as an imaginary harem-like 19th-century Orientalist painting, by an alleged follower of Jean-Léon Gérôme, that begins to appear as the puzzle pieces are put together. When the puzzle is nearly done, the piece that was missing the whole time is found under the table at the boy's feet. The missing piece is, in fact, an image of a boy's feet. When it is put in place, the portrait of the little boy in the puzzle is finally complete.
In "Lost in Translation", the narrator's puzzle-making companion is his French governess, whom he repeatedly refers to as Mademoiselle. Part mother, part teacher, part nanny, part servant, she is described by Merrill as "stout, plain, carrot-haired, devout".
At one point in the poem, Mademoiselle speaks the same phrase in French and in German. In addition to playing with the boy's
From the child's point of view, the "puzzle" goes well beyond what is taking place on the card table. Merrill is puzzling through the mystery of his existence, puzzling through the mystery of what the world is, what objects are, what people do in life. An unspoken puzzle is solved when the young Merrill determines what his relationship to Mademoiselle is, given the frequent absence of his own mother. Mademoiselle knows "her place", he writes, indicating his first consciousness of his own class privilege, as well as (perhaps) the limits placed on Mademoiselle's maternal role.
Yet other puzzles are not solved until later in life. At one point the narrator's voice modulates into that of an adult. We find out that Mademoiselle hid her true origins from the boy (and from his family) because of the political tensions leading up to 1939 and to the outbreak of World War II. Mademoiselle claimed to be French and hid her German or
The poem includes several secondary narratives that involve the adult Merrill. A scene years later in which a