Wallace Stevens (Cyclopedia of World Authors)

Wallace Stevens’s life has been called a “double life,” split between the seemingly antithetical professions of poet and insurance lawyer. However, as critic Frank Kermode notes, “Stevens did not find that he must choose between the careers of insurance lawyer and poet. The fork in the road where he took the wrong turning is a critic’s invention.” Rather, Stevens became one of America’s most respected poets. He was an accomplished stylist whose power over language and intense imagination wrought exhilarating and complex poems.

Stevens was born in Reading,...

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