Two Figures in Dense Violet Night is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1923. ref Buttel, p. 122 ref , so it is still under copyright. Only its first stanza is quoted here. align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Two Figures in Dense Violet Night p I had as lief be embraced by the porter at the hotel As to get no more from the moonlight Than your moist hand. . . . . Buttel reads the poem as about the humorous disparity between gauche male and suave female ref Buttel, p. 24 ref . But it can also be read as neither humorous nor gender specific, but rather as a meditation on the lover s otherness or alterity . The former assimilates it to such poems as The Plot Against the Giant Plot Against The Giant , the latter to such as Le Monocle de Mon Oncle Le Monocle De Mon Oncle . Related to the latter reading is the suggestion that the poem addresses the relationship of a poet to the reader, who is enjoined to match the poet s imaginative response to the world. Stevens endows the poem with pace by use of the imperative mood. Notes references References Buttel, Robert. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press. Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens poem stub ... more details
The Surprises of the Superhuman is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1918, so it is in the public domain. ref Bates, p. 251 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow The Surprises of the Superhuman p The palais de justice of chambermaids br Tops the horizon with its colonnades. br br If it were lost in bermenschlichkeit, br Perhaps our wretched state would soon come right. br br For somehow the brave dicta of kings br Make more awry our faulty human things. This poem was Section V of the poem sequence Lettres d un Soldat 1918 . It was extracted as The Surprises of the Superhuman for the second edition of Harmonium , along with Stevens Negation Negation the two poems adjoin each other near the end of the book. Both poems reflect Stevens s reading of Nietzsche . Bates comments that it contrasts the bourgeois concept of justice with that suitable to bermenschlichkeit . ref Bates, p. 251 ref Notes references References ul li Bates, Milton J. 1985 University of California Press. ul poem stub DEFAULTSORT Surprises of the Superhuman Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens Category 1918 poems ... more details
The Revolutionists stop for Orangeade is a poem from the second, 1931, edition of Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1931, ref Bates, p. 235 ref so it is restricted by copyright until 2025 in America and similar jurisdictions, because of legislation like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act . Although the poem s title is not atypical in being gaudy, it may be an exception to the rule that the titles of Stevens s poems are not guides to their content. The revolutionists are imploring their leader to let them stop singing in the sun, or at least to resume singing in the shade. And while the captain starts the singing in a voice rougher than a grinding shale, orangeade all around would not be amiss. The poem reflects Stevens s affection for the Caribbean, and it is as light as a feather compared to other poems added to the 1931 edition of Harmonium , like Sea Surface full of Clouds . Direct address and imperative mood Ask us not.... , Sing a song.... , Wear the breeches... , Hang a feather.... keeps the pace brisk in the poem s four stanzas, enhanced in the fourth by the unusual rhyming. Notes references References Bates, Milton J. Wallace Stevens A Mythology of Self . 1985 University of California Press. DEFAULTSORT Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens Category 1931 poems poem stub ... more details
accompagnement d orgue ou d harmonium 14 12 Motets pour Choeur et Orgue 15 Pi ces dans diff rents styles ... Deux Morceaux pour Harmonium 24 Pi ces dans diff rents styles pour orgue, livraison 7 25 Pi ces dans diff rents styles pour orgue, livraison 8 26 Pastorale pour Harmonium et Piano duo 27 Pri re et Berceuse pour Harmonium 28 Canzonetta pour Harmonium 29 Fughetta de Concert pour Harmonium 30 Aspiration Religieuse pour Harmonium 31 Scherzo pour Harmonium 32 Deux Pi ces pour Harmonium 33 Pi ces dans diff rents styles pour orgue, livraison 9 34 Marche Triomphale pour Harmonium et Piano duo 35 Mazurka de Salon pour Harmonium 36 Scherzo Capriccioso pour Harmonium et Piano duo 37 O Salutaris pour Basse ou Baryton et Orgue 38 Idylle pour Piano 39 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 1 40 Pi ces dans diff rents styles pour orgue, livraison 10 41 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison ... pour orgue, livraison 12 46 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 3 47 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 4 48 Six petites pi ces pour Piano r unies 49 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 5 50 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 6 Seconde Sonate pour Grand Orgue 51 Balthazar Sc ne Lyrique 52 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 7 53 Symphonie ... Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 8 56 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 9 Troisi me Sonate pour Grand Orgue 57 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 10 58 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 11 59 L Organiste Pratique pour Harmonium, livraison 12 60 No ls pour Harmonium ou Orgue 4 livraisons 61 Quatri me Sonate pour Harmonium ou Grand Orgue 62 Couronnement de Notre ... et Orchestre 64 Christus Vincit pour Choeur et Orgue 65 L Organiste Liturgiste pour Orgue ou Harmonium ... Violon et Piano 68 60 Interludes dans la tonalit Gr gorienne pour Orgue ou Harmonium 69 Pi ces dans ... more details
St le Storli , also spelled Staale Storlid , is the title of a Norwegian folksong and a novel by John Lie , published in 1880. St le Storli is a folksong about a love to a cotter s daughter. A love that is not returned. A recording was made in 1936 with Aslak Brekke vocal s and Eivind Groven harmonium . A recording with Agnes Buen Garn s , has also been released. DEFAULTSORT Stale Storli Category Norwegian folk songs Category Norwegian songs no St le Storli ... more details
Orphan date February 2009 Negation is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1918, so it is in the public domain. ref Bates, p. 133 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Negation p Hi The creator too is blind, br Struggling toward his harmonious whole, br Rejecting intermediate parts, br Horrors and falsities and wrongs br Incapable master of all force, br Too vague idealist, overwhelmed br By an afflatus that persists. br For this, then, we endure brief lives, br The evanescent symmetries br From that meticulous potter s thumb. This poem was Section VII of the poem sequence Lettres d un Soldat 1918 . It was extracted as Negation for inclusion in the second edition of Harmonium . It may reflect Stevens s reading of Thus Spake Zarathustra , according to Bates. The poem s image of God as bungling potter recalls Zarathustra s dialogue with the last pope, in which God is similarly characterized. Another Harmonium poem that clearly reflects Stevens s reading of Nietzsche is The Surprises of the Superhuman , which was also extracted from Lettres d un Soldat for inclusion in the second edition. The poem is notable for its arch wit and the Anti poetry anti poetical salutation, Hi , rather than as a solution to the problem of evil . Notes references References Bates, Milton J. 1985 University of California Press. Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens poem stub ... more details
Vinjamuri Telugu language Telugu is an Indian surname . Vinjamuri Anasuya Devi , singer, music composer, musicologist, author and expert in playing harmonium. Vinjamuri Seetha Devi Vinjamuri Venkata Lakshmi Narasimha Rao , was an Indian stage actor, Telugu Sanskrit pandit and author. Vinjamuri Govindaraja Chari , was an accomplished Judge and criminal law practitioner lawyer, in the Madras Chennai High Court, during the British and later under the Indian administrations. disambiguation Category Indian family names te ... more details
Tea is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1915 in the journal Rogue , so it is in the public domain. ref Buttel, p. 129 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Tea p When the elephant s ear in the park br Shrivelled in frost, br And the leaves on the paths br Ran like rats, br Your lamp light fell br On shining pillows, br Of sea shades and sky shades br Like umbrellas in Java. Eleanor Cook observes that Tea is one of two seemingly but far from slight poems that close both editions of Harmonium , adding that this eight line, one sentence, free verse virtuoso performance offers a very effective implicit leave taking. ref Cook, p. 85 ref The other poem she is referring to is To the Roaring Wind , quoted at the bottom of the main Harmonium essay. Cook compares Tea to Domination of Black , as being representative of all the troping of leaves through the collection . ref Cook, p. 85 ref She suggests that the reference to Java may be significant not only because it was a center of tea trade, but also because its sophisticated court culture at one time, notable for its subtleties and appreciation of artists, made it the kind of culture that Stevens especially liked . ref Cook, p. 86 ref She also suggests that the poem expresses Stevens s delicately implicit trope of drinking tea as a metaphor for reading ingesting a drink from leaves . ref Cook, p. 85 ref She notes that Stevens was a tea fancier. ref Cook, p. 85 ref Robert Buttel characterizes this poem as light, witty, and rococo, and as displaying compression, concentration, and precision ... like rats brings his sense of humor into play and creates a vivid image. As mentioned in the main Harmonium ... Ogg Notes references References Buttel, Robert. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton ... more details
The Man whose Pharynx was bad is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1921, so it is in the public domain in the United States . ref Buttel, p. 179. ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow The Man whose Pharynx was bad p The time of year has grown indifferent. br Mildew of summer and the deepening snow br Are both alike in the routine I know br I am too dumbly in my being pent. br br The wind attendant on the solstices br Blows on the shutters of the metropoles, br Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls br The grand ideas of the villages. br br The malady of the quotidian . . . br Perhaps if summer ever came to rest br And lengthened, deepened, comforted, caressed br Through days like oceans in obsidian br br Horizons, full of night s midsummer blaze br Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate br Through all its purples to the final slate, br Persisting bleakly in an icy haze br br One might in turn become less diffident, br Out of such mildew plucking neater mould br And spouting new orations of the cold. br One might. One might. But time will not relent. One point of entry into this poem is Stevens s attitude towards the weather. Is it all he cared about, or does it converge ... between Helen Vendler and Harold Bloom on this matter is noted in the main Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium essay, the section The musical imagist . This poem emphatically ties the time ... to a triad in Harmonium , the other elements being The Snow Man and Tea at the Palaz of Hoon. To master ... for meeting those anxieties. ref Bloom, p. 86 ref Pharynx represents a moment in Harmonium s progress ... Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press. Bloom, Harold. Reduction ... more details
From the Misery of Don Joost is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It is in the public domain, having been published in the journal Poetry in 1921 volume 19, October 1921 . align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow From the Misery of Don Joost p I have finished my combat with the sun br And my body, the old animal, br Knows nothing more. br br The powerful seasons bred and killed, br And were themselves the genii br Of their own ends. br br Oh, but the very self of the storm br Of sun and slaves, breeding and death, br The old animal, br br The senses and feeling, the very sound br And sight, and all there was of the storm, br Knows nothing more. br br The only reference to this poem in Stevens s letters isn t helpful. Responding to a question from Hi Simons, he writes, Don Joost is a jovial Don Quixote . He is an arbitrary figure. ref Stevens. H., p. 464 ref As Eleanor Cook observes, Don Joost is not jovial, and his resignation contrasts with Don Quixote s bravado. ref Cook, p. 51 ref It seems clear to me...that thou art not well versed in the matter of adventures these are giants and if thou art afraid, move aside and start to pray whilst I enter with them in fierce and unequal combat. Cervantes , Don Quixote , I.viii, trans. Edith Grossman, 2003 Buttel lists this poem as among a few from Harmonium that anticipate Stevens s later poetry. ref Buttel, p. 250 ref The others on his list are Sunday Morning , The Snow Man , Another Weeping Woman , and Death of a Soldier . Mention should also be made of Le Monocle de Mon Oncle , with which ... of Harmonium was a watershed for Stevens, and this is one way he experienced it. Notes references References ul li Buttel, R. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press ... more details
The Weeping Burgher is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was originally published in 1919, so it is in the public domain. ref Bates, p. 85 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow The Weeping Burgher p It is with a strange malice br That I distort the world. br br Ah that ill humors br Should mask as white girls. br And ah that Scaramouche br Should have a black barouche. br br The sorry verities br Yet in excess, continual, br There is cure of sorrow. br br Permit that if as ghost I come br Among the people burning in me still, br I come as belle design br Of foppish line. br br And I, then, tortured for old speech, br A white of wildly woven rings br I, weeping in a calcined heart, br My hands such sharp, imagined things. Stevens confesses to a strange malice that distorts the world as given by the poems in Harmonium, masking ill humors and poses. The masks are excesses that are his poetic cure for sorrow. The poet makes himself present to the reader as a ghost of himself, but an appealingly foppish ghost of belle design , quite different from the weeping burgher who crafted the artifice. The poem immediately follows The Place of the Solitaires The place of the solitaires , with which it may be instructively compared. The hands that do the writing are now seen as sharp, imagined things responsible for strangely malicious distortions. Bates recounts the following anecdote. blockquote Two years after The Weeping Burgher appeared in the journal Poetry , Genevieve Taggard told Stevens of the rumor .... ref blockquote See Harmonium poetry collection Marianne Moore s comment about the shadow of acrimonious, unprovoked contumely that she detected in Harmonium. Notes references References ul li Bates ... more details
Life is Motion is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1919, so it is in the public domain. ref http librivox.org forum viewtopic.php?t 4077 Buttel, p. 121. See also Librivox ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Life is Motion p In Oklahoma, br Bonnie and Josie, br Dressed in calico, br Danced around a stump. br They cried, br Ohoyaho, br Ohoo ... br Celebrating the marriage br Of flesh and air. br This playful poem is notable for its introducing exclamatory sounds, and for evoking the American frontier and the simple joy of Calico textile calico clad Bonnie and Josie. Stevens returns to Oklahoma, the venue for the first poem in Harmonium, Harmonium poetry collection Earthy Anecdote , which charged a local scene with an aura of mystery. Life in Motion by contrast reduces locale to basics, suggesting in its own way that the poet must move beyond it as Crispin did in The Comedian as the Letter C The Comedian as the Letter C , even as this marriage of flesh and air is celebrated. A symbolist reading would understand the flesh as reality, the air as imagination. The poem celebrates Stevens s task, to engage his imagination with reality. A philosophically ambitious reading would view it as a poetic expression of a process philosophy like that of Alfred North Whitehead . One critic wrote Of the modern poets, Wallace Stevens seem to me the most successful creator of artistic experiences which hum with the energy and motion of life. ref Blessing, p 251 ref See also Metaphors of a Magnifico , where the debt to Cubism Cubist studies of motion is particularly evident. Media Listen filename Poems vol1 35 stevens.ogg title Life is Motion ... . Buttel, Robert. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press. Life poem ... more details
Lunar Paraphrase is a poem from the second 1931 edition of Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . One of Stevens s war poems from Lettres d un Soldat 1918 , it is in the public domain. ref In a letter to his wife in 1918 he alludes to Lunar Paraphrase as one of his war poems . That remark is footnoted by Holly Stevens, the editor of Letters of Wallace Stevens , as follows blockquote Lettres d un Soldat, Poetry , XII May 1918 , 59 65. According to the Wallace Stevens Checklist , by Samuel French Morse, Jackson R. Bryer, and Joseph N. Riddel Denver Alan Swallow 1963 , p. 54 None of these poems was reprinted in the first edition of Harmonium . The 1931 edition of Harmonium contains the following poems from the group as separate entities The Surprises of the Superhuman C.P., 98 Negation C.P., 97 98 The Death of a Soldier, which was in Poetry as Life contracts and death is expected C.P., 97 and Lunar Paraphrase C.P., 107 , which Miss Monroe did not include in the Poetry printing . Other poems from the group may be found in O.P., 10 16. See also O.P., xix, for a comment by Samuel French Morse. blockquote ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Lunar Paraphrase p The moon is the mother of pathos and pity. When, at the wearier end of November, Her old light moves along the branches, Feebly, slowly, depending upon them When the body of Jesus hangs in a pallor, Humanly near, and the figure of Mary, Touched on by hoar frost, shrinks in a shelter Made by the leaves, that have rotted and fallen When over the houses, a golden illusion Brings back an earlier season of quiet And quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness The moon is the mother of pathos and pity. The poem makes use of a late autumn night to express a mood. It appropriates ..., ref See the main Harmonium essay, the section The Musical Imagist . ref and a poem like Lunar Paraphrase ... more details
Orphan date February 2009 The Load Of Sugar Cane is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow The Load Of Sugar Cane p The going of the glade boat br Is like water flowing br br Like water flowing br Through the green saw grass br Under the rainbows br br Under the rainbows br That are like birds, br Turning, bedizened, br br While the wind still whistles br As kildeer do, br br When they rise br At the red turban br Of the boatman. br br In her review of Harmonium Marianne Moore picks out The Load of Sugar Cane for praise because it achieves its splendor cumulatively. It illustrates an element of his craft, his refraining for fear of impairing a poem s litheness of contour, from overelaborating felicities inherent in a subject. ref Moore, p. 127. ref The red turban of the boatman in the final stanza is a little surprise, not what one would expect in the evidently Floridian everglades. Stevens is upsetting easy traditional expectations in this little experiment. Notes references References Moore, Marianne. Well moused, Lion. The Dial 76 1924 . Reprinted in Twentieth Century Literature 30 1984 DEFAULTSORT Load Of Sugar Cane Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens Category 1923 poems ... more details
Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1921 and is therefore in the public domain. ref Buttel, p. 148 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores p I say now, Fernando, that on that day br The mind roamed as a moth roams, br Among the blooms beyond the open sand And that whatever noise the motion of the waves br Made on the seaweeds and the covered stones br Disturbed not even the most idle ear. Then it was that that monstered moth br Which had lain folded against the blue br And the colored purple of the lazy sea, And which had drowsed along the bony shores, br Shut to the blather that the water made, br Rose up besprent and sought the flaming red Dabbled with yellow pollen red as red br As the flag above the old cafe br And roamed there all the stupid afternoon br The subject of the poem is boredom of an afternoon and being saved from it by focus on an experience of brilliant color. The poetry of the subject upsets traditional expectations, especially in the first and last lines. Stevens is experimenting with iconoclasm . The informality and familiarity of I say now, Fernando puts the reader off balance, and the last line provokes the belle lettrist who finds that in this poem Stevens goes over to the Chinese . For such a critic the poem lacks an appropriately lacquer finish and is marred by the intrusion in the last line of the critical adjective stupid . http www.nytimes.com books 97 12 21 home stevens harmonium.html? r 2&oref slogin&oref login . Wink most when critics wince, one might say, paraphrasing from A High Toned Old Christian Woman . Notes references References Buttel, H. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium ... more details
Disillusionment of Ten O Clock is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1915, and it is in the public domain. ref Buttel, p. 159 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Disillusionment of Ten O Clock p The houses are haunted br By white night gowns. br None are green, br Or purple with green rings, br Or green with yellow rings, br Or yellow with blue rings. br None of them are strange, br With socks of lace br And beaded ceintures. br People are not going br To dream of baboons and periwinkles. br Only, here and there, an old sailor, br Drunk and asleep in his boots, br Catches tigers br In red weather. The poem allows the reader to linger over the possibility of colors, of strangeness, and of unusual dreams. Imagination that is absent from a mundane orderly life is represented, not by a dandified aesthete, but instead by a drunken sailor dreaming of catching tiger tigers in red weather. The poem itself shows that imagination has its own order, so the representation should be kept distinct from what it represents. Thus following one of the main facets necessary for modernist literature to function that the object or idea being represented exists in and for itself, and only itself. On this reading the poem is not an indictment of middle class values, though that is one interpretive option, but rather the haunted house of white night gowns represents life without imagination. Notes references References Buttel, R. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press. Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens ... more details
Orphan date February 2009 The Cuban Doctor is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in the journal Poetry journal Poetry in October, 1921, so it is in the public domain. ref Buttel, p. 191. See also Librivox http librivox.org forum viewtopic.php?t 4077 and the Poetry web site. http www.poetrymagazine.org search author.html?query 6576 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow The Cuban Doctor p I went to Egypt to escape br The Indian, but the Indian struck br Out of his cloud and from his sky. This was no worm bred in the moon, br Wriggling far down the phantom air, br And on a comfortable sofa dreamed. The Indian struck and disappeared. br I knew my enemy was near I, br Drowsing in summer s sleepiest horn. This 1921 poem meditates on Stevens s increasing awareness, also notably expressed in Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks The Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks 1923 , that the difference between imaginative activity and ordinary experience is unstable and affected by irrational forces, which may attack, like a bolt of lightning, even someone drowsing in summer s sleepiest horn . This theme can be understood as signalling that writing poetry is dangerous. Poetic drowsing is liable to attack by the Indian, or by Berserk in Peacocks , defeating imagination s task of transforming the ordinary. This sense of danger is absent in such earlier poems as Disillusionment of Ten O Clock 1915 , where the old sailor need fear no such violence as he catches tigers in red weather. Notes references References Buttel, R. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press. DEFAULTSORT Cuban Doctor Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens Category 1921 poems Category Works originally published in Poetry magazine ... more details
Orphan date February 2009 The Virgin Carrying a Lantern is a poem from Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium 1923 . It was one of the few Harmonium poems first published in that volume, so it is still under copyright. However, it is quoted here as justified by fair use to facilitate scholarly commentary. align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow poem The Virgin Carrying a Lantern There are no bears among the roses, Only a negress who supposes Things false and wrong About the lantern of the beauty Who walks there, as a farewell duty, Walks long and long. The pity that her pious egress Should fill the vigil of a negress With heat so strong poem This poem illustrates Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson s maxim about reading Stevens, that even when you do not know what he is saying, you know that he is saying it well. It also illustrates a variant, that even when you have qualms about what he is saying, you know that he is saying it well. The image of the virgin carrying a lantern is crisp, contributing to a well wrought miniature. The role for the negress may be a racist stereotype. It is certainly more likely to be seen as such today than in 1923. Stevens surely meant it to be a playful poem, as the facile rhyme indicates. Frank Doggett reads the poem as about the tension between conscious and unconscious, personified by the virgin and the negress respectively. The virgin is the consciousness fulfulling its conventional roles by the light of its intelligence, the lantern, he writes, whereas the negress is the unconscious libido hidden among the flowers of sentiment, representing the subliminal erotic life beneath the pieties and traditional obligations of the roles taken by the consciousness. ref Doggett, p. 17 ref Other readers may doubt that such a slight poem can bear this heavy load of Freudian theory. Notes references Refere ... more details
Bantams in Pine Woods is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1922 in the poetry journal Dial, along with five other poems, all under the title Revue . ref Cook, p. 36 ref It is in the public domain. ref Buttel, p. 194. See also Librivox http librivox.org forum viewtopic.php?t 4077 and the Poetry web site. http www.poetrymagazine.org search author.html?query 6576 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Bantams in Pine Woods p Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan br Of tan with henna hackles, halt Damned universal cock, as if the sun br Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail. Fat Fat Fat Fat I am the personal. br Your world is you. I am my world. You ten foot poet among inchlings. Fat br Begone An inchling bristles in these pines, Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs, br And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos. This poem can be read as a little declaration of independence for American poetry. The new world s inchling poets are defiant towards the traditional literary canon, confident of their powers in the New World. The poem can be compared to The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage on Helen Vendler s interpretation of it as an expression of confidence in new American art. On this reading Chieftan Iffucan represents the canon, making a claim to universality and a privileged access to inspiration that is challenged by the Appalachia n inchlings. The richness of tradition is conceded Fat .... , but it is relativized Your world is you. . Notes references References Buttel, Robert. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press. Vendler, Helen. On Extended Wings . 1969 Harvard University Press. Cook, Eleanor. A Reader s Guide to Wallace Stevens . 2007 Princeton University Press. DEFAULTSORT ... more details
Tattoo is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was originally published in 1916, so it is in the public domain. ref Buttel, p. 131 ref Librivox has made the poem available in voice recording in its The Complete Public Domain Poems of Wallace Stevens . align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Tattoo br br The light is like a spider. br It crawls over the water. br It crawls over the edges of the snow. br It crawls under your eyelids br And spreads its webs there br Its two webs. The webs of your eyes br Are fastened br To the flesh and bones of you br As to rafters of grass. There are filaments of your eyes br On the surface of the water br And in the edges of the snow. Stevens s use of the familiar you accentuates the somewhat invasive effect of the poem as it describes the negotiation between sunlight and eye that occurs in perception. What happens in the eyes is not simply passive irradiation by light emanating from water and snow, but it also figures in an act in which the seer probes and interprets, as when the poet sees the light as like a crawling spider. Buttel detects Imagistic technique in the poem s Whitman like naming of physical details. ref Buttel, p. 131 2 ref In response to nature, man s natural architecture of flesh and bones has developed so as to catch nature s beauty. We are tattoo d by it, but equally we tattoo nature with human sensibility. Notes references References Buttel, Robert. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press. External links http librivox.org forum viewtopic.php?t 4077 The Complete Public Domain Poems of Wallace Stevens Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens ... more details
The Public Square is a poem from the second edition ref Stevens, H. p. 260 ref 1931 of Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1923, ref Buttel, p. 163 ref so it is one of the few poems in the collection that is not free of copyright, but it is quoted here in full as justified by fair use for scholarly commentary. align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow The Public Square p A slash of angular blacks br Like a fractured edifice br That was buttressed by blue slats br In a coma of the moon. A slash and the edifice fell, br Pylon and pier fell down. br A mountain blue cloud arose br Like a thing in which they fell, Fell slowly as when at night br A languid janitor bears br His lantern through colonnades br And the architecture swoons. It turned cold and silent. Then br The square began to clear. br The bijou of Atlas, the moon, br Was last with its porcelain leer. The violence of an edifice s demolition is matched by the violence of the poem s language, particularly in the first two stanzas. The slow motion collapse is captured in the surreal atmosphere created by the third stanza. The final stanza etches a precise image of the square s clearing. The harshness of the poem can be compared to the brutal encounter with Berserk in Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks , with which it shares an Architecture architectural motif. Buttel detects the influence of Cubism . ref Buttel, p. 163 ref Notes references References li Robert Frost. Wallace Stevens The Making of Harmonium . 1967 Princeton University Press. li Stevens, H. Letters of Wallace Stevens . 1966 University of California Press DEFAULTSORT Public Square Category Poetry by Wallace Stevens Category 1923 poems poem stub ... more details
as drone. After the harmonium became popular, musicians would modify the harmonium to automatically produce the reference pitch. Typically, one would open up the cover and adjust the Organ stop stop of the harmonium to produce a drone. Later, a keyless version of the harmonium was invented for the specific ... more details
Tea at the Palaz of Hoon is a poem from Wallace Stevens s first book of poetry, Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium . It was first published in 1921, so it is in the public domain. ref Bates, p. 126. See also Librivox http librivox.org forum viewtopic.php?t 4077 and the Poetry web site. http www.poetrymagazine.org search author.html?query 6576 ref align right border 1 cellpadding 2 cellspacing 2 style margin left 1em style margin bottom 1em align left style background lightyellow Tea at the Palaz of Hoon p Not less because in purple I descended br The western day through what you called br The loneliest air, not less was I myself. What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard? br What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears? br What was the sea whose tide swept through me there? Out of my mind the golden ointment rained, br And my ears made the blowing hymns they heard. br I was myself the compass of that sea I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw br Or heard or felt came not but from myself br And there I found myself more truly and more strange. This poem is central to Harold Bloom s reading of Stevens s Harmonium , as marking the poet s progress over the perspectivism of The Snow Man and the pessimism of The man whose pharynx was bad . The reader who masters these poems and their interrelationships has, according to Bloom, reached the center of Stevens s poetic and human anxieties and of his resources for meeting those anxieties . Hoon points the way towards Stevens s future development as a poet, in his view. ref Axelrod, p. 86 ref Hoon is easily understood as a philosophical poem, lending itself to interpretation as an exercise in the philosophy of solipsism or subjective ... by irony among the early protagonists of Harmonium . blockquote Without a visit to Hoon in his palaz ... also the main Harmonium poetry collection Harmonium essay, especially the section Locality . Although ... more details
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