A World Without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Richard Wilbur
- First Published: 1950
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry
- Subjects: Deserts, Camels, Mind and body
The poem's title is a quote from Thomas Traherne, a seventeenth century mystic and poet. The poem is written in a stanza form which would certainly be commonplace in the seventeenth century, with four-line stanzas rhyming abab, though some of the rhymes are slant rhymes. Line 1 is trimeter; line 2, pentameter; line 3, hexameter; and line 4, trimeter.
The central metaphor or conceit of the poem is that the search for Traherne's “sensible emptiness” is a camel caravan, leaving the security of the oasis for a “desert experience.” It “move[s] with a stilted stride/...
[The entire page is 622 words long]
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