Images---Art and Literature

 

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  Stuart Merrill, in elder age. Merrill was the product of a conservative, wealthy, Protestant upbringing. In 1866, his father George received a diplomatic appointment to  Paris , where Merrill would learn French and live for the next 19 years.  Stéphane Mallarmé  was one of Merrill's school instructors. His classmates included future symbolists  René Ghil  and  Pierre Quillard . Merrill ran a weekly journal,  Le fou , before returning to the States in 1884 to attend law school. [1]  On April 15, 1887, Merrill went to Madison Square Theater in New York to hear  Walt Whitman  give his famous " Death of Abraham Lincoln " lecture. Afterwards, Merrill had the opportunity to meet Whitman, an experience he later recorded in the magazine "Le Masque." [2] Also in 1887, Merrill published his first book of poems,  Les gammes , in Paris, and received wide critical acclaim in Europe. As his literary career took off he participated in radic...