Emerging from the practice, art, and magic of translation, this essay
collection concerns itself with the way certain fables of metamorphosis
have captured the poetic imagination and how translation--literary
metamorphosis--extends this process. The syntax and diction of the prose
of John Ruskin, so important to the evolution of Proust's prose style,
is offered as an example of the way visual experience can suggest
certain methods of approach to the poet. Demonstrated is how, with a
wealth of examples and close readings, poetry itself is a form of
metamorphosis, raw materials being transformed and realized though
literary expression and technique. In these essays a major poet reflects
on the core and timeless elements of the poetic craft.