Merrill addendum

In the midst of all the revisions needed to bring my initially epic-length James Merrill article (‘Voices from the Pageant’ FT405:40-47) into “fit to print” shape, one salient point was inadvertently cut: namely, the significance of the peacock, as illustrated on the cover of Merrill’s Mirabell: Books of Number and the photographs from Merrill and partner David Jackson’s Stonington, Connecticut, apartment. In Merrill’s poem, Mirabell, a fallen angel, and one of the irradiated Mothman-like creatures, gradually takes on the form of a peacock. Initially the angel self-applies the name Beezelbob, but, following Merrill and Jackson’s protestations over the silliness of this name, is renamed by Merrill and Jackson “Mirabell” after the “strut and plumage” of the protagonist of William Congreve’s The Way of the World; the name also has echoes of “Merrill” and “mirror”. A piquant detail: Merrill biographer Langdon Hammer points out that Royal Park in Athens, Greece, a park frequented by Merrill and Jackson and a place where homosexual men were known to cruise for sexual partners, was also populated by peacocks.

Eric Hoffman

Vernon, Connecticut