Introduction


Wallace Stevens

Although Wallace Stevens never has had as large an audience as that enjoyed by Robert Frost and did not receive substantial recognition until several years before his death, he is usually considered to be one of the best five or six English-language poets of the twentieth century. 

Strongly influenced by early nineteeth century English poets, Stevens became a modern Romantic who transformed and extended the English Romantic tradition as he accommodated it to the twentieth century world. Harmonium and subsequent volumes reveal his assimilation of the innovations of avant-garde painting, music, poetry, and philosophy. One finds in his canon, for example, intimations of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Henri Bergson, and of cubism, Impressionism, Imagism, and Symbolism. Such influences were always subordinated to the poet’s romantic sensibility, however, which struggled with the central Romantic problem—the need to overcome the gulf between the inner, human reality and outer, objective reality. A secular humanist who rejected traditional Christianity, arcane mysticism, and the pessimism of The Waste Land (1922) and the Cantos (beginning in 1925), he succeeded as a Romantic poet in the modern world. His contribution to poetry was recognized in 1950 with the award of the Bollingen Prize and in 1955 with the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. His reputation has continued to grow since his death in 1955.

 

Recommended Resources

  1. Sunday Morning Study Guide (eNotes)
  2. The Idea of Order at Key West Study Guide (eNotes)
  3. Wallace Stevens (Critical Survey of Poetry)
  4. Wallace Stevens (Cyclopedia of World Authors)

All Resources

Display as: Categories, List
  1. A Postcard from the Volcano Summary - Wallace Stevens
  2. Anecdote of the Jar Summary - Wallace Stevens
  3. Connoisseur of Chaos Summary - Wallace Stevens
  4. Credences of Summer Summary - Wallace Stevens
  5. Farewell Without a Guitar Summary - Wallace Stevens
  6. Harmonium Summary - Wallace Stevens
  7. Le Monocle de Mon Oncle Summary - Wallace Stevens
  8. Marianne Moore Criticism by Wallace Stevens
  9. Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction Summary - Wallace Stevens
  10. Of Modern Poetry Summary - Wallace Stevens
  11. Peter Quince at the Clavier Summary - Wallace Stevens
  12. Stevens, Wallace: The Oxford Companion to American Literature
  13. Stevens, Wallace: The Oxford Companion to English Literature
  14. Sunday Morning Study Guide (eNotes)
  15. Sunday Morning Summary - Wallace Stevens
  16. The Auroras of Autumn Summary - Wallace Stevens
  17. The Emperor of Ice-Cream Summary - Wallace Stevens
  18. The Idea of Order at Key West Study Guide (eNotes)
  19. The Idea of Order at Key West Summary - Wallace Stevens
  20. The Man with the Blue Guitar Summary - Wallace Stevens
  21. The Poetry of Stevens Summary - Wallace Stevens
  22. The Snow Man Summary - Wallace Stevens
  23. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Summary - Wallace Stevens
  24. Wallace Stevens (Critical Survey of Poetry)
  25. Wallace Stevens (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
  26. Wallace Stevens Review - James Longenbach
  27. Wallace Stevens Review - Joan Richardson