This quasi-philosophical aspect of Stevens seemed very attractive in the later decades of the twentieth century, especially after the death of Eliot, whose Christianity sometimes inflected the academic critical establishment that championed his poems. Today this aspect of Stevens feels threadbare--as if the professional lawyer came to imagine that he was also a professional philosopher.
I think it is worthwhile to read Stevens - as I have lately been doing - in conjunction with George Santayana. I think the philosophical dimension is present throughout Stevens's work, and comes off best in what seems purely lyrical There is also, throughout, a religious dimension - specifically, a preoccupation with faith (not belief, however).
I was recently reading in Sam Hamill's book of essays on poetry, "Avocations," and got an insight into Stevens that really made it clear to me why Stevens is lauded by so many of the contemporary head-oriented poets, and why he was the darling of the post-Eliot New Critics.
ReplyDeleteIn a long, wonderful essay on Kenneth Rexroth, Hamill gives us:
"We live in an age in which the poetry of mature erotic love is out of fashion. Our poets and critics tend to prefer the cool cerebral play of Stevens to the naked jig of Dr. Williams. Much of our poetry takes no political or emotional risk. Rexroth was fond of quoting Yvor Winters, "Emotion in any situation must be as far as possible eliminated," following it with a pregnant pause and a great guffaw."
This also explains to me, reading Hamill's thoughts on Rexroth, why I was always drawn to him and thought Winters to be a terrible influence on contemporary poetry.
I am Rexroth fan, too. I highly recommend his book Assays. But I think the people who find Stevens coolly cerebral may be too coolly cerebral themselves. There is intense controlled emotion in Stevens's poetry, the emotion of someone who must restrain him feeling else be constrained by them. But maybe you have to be that sort of person to appreciate that. I will say no more.
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