Jan 3, 2010
Perhaps the most frequently anthologized of Stevens's poems, “Anecdote of the Jar” reflects Stevens's preoccupation with appearances or surfaces. “The world is measured by the eye,” he said in one of his many aphoristic comments, and this difficult poem plays with the issues of what the eye measures and how. The poem's interpretation is far from agreed upon, as any identification of the jar (art? technology? any single point of reference?) tends to limit the poem unacceptably.
The poem's twelve lines describe the placement of a jar—a mason jar, as one critic suggests?...
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