WALLACE STEVENS
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 - August 2, 1955) was an American Modernist
poet.
Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Stevens went to college at Harvard, after which
he moved to New York City and briefly worked as a journalist. He then attended
New York Law School, graduating in 1903. By 1908 he had been hired as a bonding
lawyer for an insurance firm, and by 1914 he was the vice-president of the New
York Office of the Equitable Surety Company of St. Louis, Missouri. When this
job was abolished as a result of mergers in 1916, he joined the home office of
Hartford Accident and Indemnity and left New York City to live in Hartford,
where he would remain the rest of his life. By 1934, he had been named vice-president
of the company.
On a trip back to Reading in 1904, Stevens met Elsie Moll, whom he married,
after a long courtship, in 1909. The marriage reputedly turned cold and distant,
but the Stevenses never divorced.
Stevens got his first book of poetry, Harmonium, published in 1923, and produced
only two more major books of poetry during the 1920s and '30s. He came out with
three books of poetry in the 1940s, however, and his best poetry was written
after he turned 60. It was in this later period that Stevens began to be
recognized as a major poet, and he received the National Book Award in 1950 and
1954.
Poetry
Stevens' subjects are the interplay between imagination and reality, and the
relation between consciousness and the world. In Stevens, "imagination" is not
equivalent to consciousness or "reality" to the world as it exists outside our
minds. Reality is the product of the imagination as it shapes the world. Or
rather, as the title of one of his late poems puts it, Stevens sees reality "as
the activity of the most august imagination."
Reality is an activity, not a static object, because it is constantly changing
as we attempt to find imaginatively satisfying ways to perceive the world.
Stevens sees the poet (who, as for Wordsworth, is qualitatively the same as
other people) as continually creating and discarding cognitive depictions of the
world. These cognitive depictions find their outlet and their best and final
form as words; and thus Stevens can say, "It is a world of words to the end of
it, / In which nothing solid is its solid self." His most general and impressive
statement in this vein comes in a poem called "Men Made out of Words," in which
he says: "Life / Consists of propositions about life.".
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 - August 2, 1955) was an American Modernist
poet.
Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Stevens went to college at Harvard, after which
he moved to New York City and briefly worked as a journalist. He then attended
New York Law School, graduating in 1903. By 1908 he had been hired as a bonding
lawyer for an insurance firm, and by 1914 he was the vice-president of the New
York Office of the Equitable Surety Company of St. Louis, Missouri. When this
job was abolished as a result of mergers in 1916, he joined the home office of
Hartford Accident and Indemnity and left New York City to live in Hartford,
where he would remain the rest of his life. By 1934, he had been named vice-president
of the company.
On a trip back to Reading in 1904, Stevens met Elsie Moll, whom he married,
after a long courtship, in 1909. The marriage reputedly turned cold and distant,
but the Stevenses never divorced.
Stevens got his first book of poetry, Harmonium, published in 1923, and produced
only two more major books of poetry during the 1920s and '30s. He came out with
three books of poetry in the 1940s, however, and his best poetry was written
after he turned 60. It was in this later period that Stevens began to be
recognized as a major poet, and he received the National Book Award in 1950 and
1954.
Poetry
Stevens' subjects are the interplay between imagination and reality, and the
relation between consciousness and the world. In Stevens, "imagination" is not
equivalent to consciousness or "reality" to the world as it exists outside our
minds. Reality is the product of the imagination as it shapes the world. Or
rather, as the title of one of his late poems puts it, Stevens sees reality "as
the activity of the most august imagination."
Reality is an activity, not a static object, because it is constantly changing
as we attempt to find imaginatively satisfying ways to perceive the world.
Stevens sees the poet (who, as for Wordsworth, is qualitatively the same as
other people) as continually creating and discarding cognitive depictions of the
world. These cognitive depictions find their outlet and their best and final
form as words; and thus Stevens can say, "It is a world of words to the end of
it, / In which nothing solid is its solid self." His most general and impressive
statement in this vein comes in a poem called "Men Made out of Words," in which
he says: "Life / Consists of propositions about life.".