美国文学史考试之Wallace Stevens

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Wallace Stevens’s Works

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Harmonium

(1923)

won

critical

acclaim,

but

no

real

popularity,

and

Stevens

did

not

publish again until 1936.

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He carefully-worked poems in such volumes as

Ideas of Order (1936)

were gathered in

Collected Poems

(1954).

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His other publications have included

: Owl’s Clover

(1936),

The Man with the Blue Guitar

(1937)

Parts of the World

(1942), Transport to Summer

(1947)

Auroras of Autumn

(1950)

秋天的晨曦

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He described his philosophy in a collection of essays under the title

The Necessary Angel

(1951).

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He constantly dealt with the nature of poetry, he became in his later works increasingly

meditative and philosophical.

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Harmonium

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Harmonium

(1923) established his stature among the few poets of ideas.

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Harmonium

was

revised

and

somewhat

enlarged

in

1931;

Meanwhile

Stevens’

accumulation of new poems, while slow, was steady, and the occasional appearance of

one

of

them

in

magazine

gave

evidence

of

his

continued

absorption

with

ideas

of

increasing subtlety.

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He

perfected

a

style

that

brilliantly

embodied

his

extraordinary

wit

in

corresponding

rhythmic

and

tonal

effects,

and

in

his

ability

to

recall

simultaneously

the

essential

meaning and the connotative suggestions of a particular word.

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Harmonium

, his most important poetic work, was part of a revolution in American poetry.

He

adapted

a

variety

of

experimental

styles,

odd

sounds,

curious

analogies,

and

inscrutable titles.

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He

confronted

the

contemporary

abandonment

of

traditional

values

and

sought

to

come to terms with the confusions of his time.

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The

problem

of

the

interrelation

between

the

ideal

and

the

real

became

a

constant

theme in his later poetry and led him to elaborate a series of oppositions between inner

and outer worlds --- between subject and object,

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perceiver and the perceived, fiction and fact, or as he most often phrased it, between

“ imagination and reality”.

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Anecdote of the Jar

广口瓶轶事

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It is a strange poem in some ways and not very easy to interpret.

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Here

he

agrees

with

T.S

Eliot’s

notion

of

poetry

as

an

autonomous

construction capable of more than one interpretation.

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So we can only decipher the meaning by placing it in the larger contest of his

aesthetic credo and thematic concerns.

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I placed a jar in Tennessee

我把一只坛子放在田纳西

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And round it was, upon a hill.

它圆圆的，矗立在山顶

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It made the slovenly wilderness

原本凌乱的荒野

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Surround that hill.

因它而向小山环聚

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The wilderness rose up to it,

荒野向它涌来

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

并向四周蔓延，不再狂野

The jar was round upon the ground

圆圆的坛子在地面上格外突出

And tall and of a port in air.

高的像空中的海港

It took dominion everywhere.

它统治着所有地方

The jar was gray and bare.

虽然它光秃秃、灰溜溜

It did not give of bird or bush,

它既不长鸟又不长植物

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

但它与田纳西的任何一样东西 就是不同

Here

lies

the

wild

---

and

chaotic

and

formless

–

rural

Tennessee,

which

let

us

assume is a symbol of the world of nature

The “I” of the poem places in the world of art, and by extension, the world of

imagination.

What happens when the jar is standing there is almost a miracle: it controls

the whole disorderly landscape.

The poem seems to be talking about the relationship between art and nature.

The world of nature, shapeless and slovenly, takes shape and order from the

presence of the jar.

The world of art and imagination gives form and meaning to that of nature

and

reality,

thus

suggesting,

as

Stevens

may

be

doing,

that

any

society

without art is one without order and that man makes the order he perceives,

and the world he inhabits is one he half creates.

Stevens

firmly

believes

that the

poet

is

the

archetype

of

creative

power

on

which all human understanding depends. The poet is an instrument by means

of which man is made to see life.

After

reading

and

thinking

about the

poem

above, have

you

understood

something out

of those

lines?

It

is

only

about

a

jar literally,

but

figuratively

reflect

more

about

the

relationship

between

nature

and

humans,

the

meaning of art, as well as the philosophy of comprehending the world which

we are living in every single second.

Without a jar, the wilderness is the wilderness. The living things there have

their

own

ways

to

live

without

any

order

among

them.

Birth,

existence,

survival

and

death,

no

emotion,

no

more

thought,

the

circulation

of

species would be

impassively on-going. This

quietness

of

nature

can

be

maintained millions of years if no interruption occurs.

Till

appears

the

jar,

everything

in

the

wilderness

changed

dramatically.

Imagine

that

you

are

standing in the

wild

Tennessee

and

looking

around,

you must see nothing but the jar--- definitely the focus. You would think how

it is there? why it's been left there? Whether it is nice? What your feelings are

when

seeing

it?

etc.

Suddenly,

the

whole

place

of

Tennessee

becomes meaningful and it's no longer desolate anymore.

The jar means humanity, means culture, means art and artistic imaginations.

With

a

jar

being

there,

the

wilderness

got

a

center,

and

then,

an

order

for

everything.

The

soil,

the

sand,

the

patches

of

grass

and

clumps

of

bush

are soon under dominance of it. The jar adds some thought to this place, just

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like art, turning the dead to live. Art is magic. It fantasizes the nature. Without

art, we are nothing and dead.

In the poem, Anecdote of the Jar, Stevens portrays the complex relationship

of

human

to

nature

through

confusion

of

who

is

greater

than

whom,

how

they depend on each other, the connection between the two, and the form

the

poem

is

written

in. Stevens forces the

reader

to feel

the

confusion

and

chaos

present

between

the

jar

(a

symbol

for

humans)

and

nature.

This

relationship can be felt and read through the form the poem is written in.

The poem uses confusing wording to show the relationship of humans to

nature. For example, line 9 says,

to nature, means the power that nature has over the jar (humans). Nature's

dominant overpowering

weakens

humans.

Humans

then become powerless

and

vulnerable

to

whatever

nature

has

become.

Another

line

proving

this

dominance states,

being

plain

and

simple.

This

normalcy

becomes

ineffective

and

powerless.

The ordinary doesn't have as much power as the objects that stick out from

the crowd. Humans don't seem to stand out in the vastness of the wilderness.

The next line turns the control in an interesting way:

or bush.

this

line

refers

to

the

jar.

The

plot

begins

to

thicken

as

it

was

previously

suggested that the wilderness had all the control in the relationship. The jar

now becomes an authority because it will not give into the natural world. To

the

reader,

the

relationship

just

became

undefined.

The

power

was

turned

over from nature to man.

Stevens

also

shows

the

dominance

issue

in

the

beginning

of

the

poem.

He

says,

made

the

slovenly

wilderness

/Surround

that

hill.

The

authority is

placed again in front of the jar. The wilderness is careless and aware of this

new object placed in its environment. Then the poem states,

rose up to it, / And sprawled around no longer wild.

once

again.

The

wilderness

is

now

in

charge.

The

reversal

of

the

roles

contained

the

poem

in

an

environment

of

utter

confusion.

Stevens

showed

the audience that this relationship really was chaotic, throughout the poem,

to prove his point.

Stevens created this confusing state to allow the reader to really feel what

the relationship is between the two. This relationship is hard to understand

and

is

something

that

cannot

be

set.

Using

irregular

rhymes

and

wording,

Stevens is able to create this unsolvable relationship. Taking a step away from

the poem to real life proves that Stevens is correct in his undertaking of ideas

from human to nature. For example, this very paper is from a tree that man

has cut down, showing that nature was defenseless in the act. On the other

hand, there are certainly a number of hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. happening

in the world today. Humans can do nothing to prevent these disasters from

happening. Neither human nor wilderness is the dominant source.

With all the confusion in the poem, Stevens reveals an underlying message