DOCSLIB.ORG

An Examination of the Implications of Wallace Stevens* '^Central Poetry"

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
An Examination of the Implications of Wallace Stevens* '^Central Poetry i OSCILLATIONS OF THE ABSOLUTE: An Examination of the Implications of Wallace Stevens* '^Central Poetry" by Keith Darrel Eccleston B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1959 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Master of Arts in the Department of English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 196k. In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study* I further agree that per• mission, for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that, copying or publi• cation of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission* Department of Ibri^lisL The University of British Columbia, Vancouver 8, Canada Date 11 ABSTRACT The Inadequacy of the image has ever been the besetting problem of idealist esthetics. The discrepancy between the absolute and the contingent, between the thing, the idea of the thing and the experience of the thing provides common cause for the compositions of hermetic art. The basic affir• mation of this thesis is that the theory of Wallace Stevens offers a demonstrable solution to the problem and that his relational use of images in The Collected Poems overcomes the inadequacy of those images. In practice, however, this thesis involves the delinea• tion of that solution less than the dialectics necessary to determine its nature. Such a method is dictated by an initial acceptance of deliberate obscuration as one of the formative principles of Stevens' esthetic. The introduction to this paper is little more than an examination of the causes and values of obscuration in Stevens' prose and in his poems and a defence of the method adopted herein to deal with those values; in it, Stevens' poems are vievred as acts appropriate to the practical process of transcendence - a process designed to attain, in the words of the Athanasian Creed, "One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God." The theoretic validity of transcendence as process becomes the onus proband! of "Part I". It constitutes an attempt to appease apparent ambigiiities in Stevens' theory of poetry - ambiguities that have plagued critics who would perceive in his poems the principles of his theory - by determining the nature and implications of Stevens' concept of "central poetry." The source, nature, and mode of existence of that concept - used herein as generic name for Stevens' total theory - are charac• terized by the image of oscillations contained in the thesis title. Basically, the discipline of the "central poet" is analogous to that involved in the via affirmativa and via negativa of religious art, but the phrase 'oscillations of the absolute* more easily manifests the character of his symbols. The phrase describes both the movement of the mind from in• volvement in the limitations of images and ideas to free con• templation and the nature of the 'existent images' which become adequate objects for that contemplation. The coupling of oscillations in the image with movements of the mind dictates the kind of study projected in "Part II" of this paper. Therein Stevens' theory is compared to the tenets of symbolism, in terms both of the creation of the in• dividual symbol and of the symbolic work - specifically with Mallarme's concept of "the Book." The architectonics of The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens - the variation and repeti• tion of image, the incorporations of allusion, the progression in the volume from positings of the contingent to existent images of the absolute - are indicated, and the karmic process of the mind as it dramatizes itself in that created architecture is described. Decreation, abstraction, composition, and repeti• tion are treated as the major aspects of the movement of the mind towards the unfettered experience of the absolute. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a concept of the nature of Stevens' poetic that will prove efficacious as a iv critical approach to his poems. Its validity, therefore, is dependent upon the degree to which the concept herein evolved provides an insight into the experience of The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. V TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE PRELIMINARY: An Introduction to Obscurity and a Defence of Method 1 PART I - Central Poetry: Morphology 32 PART II - Central Poetry: Syntax 115 CONCLUSION 170 FOOTNOTES 172 BIBLIOGRAPHY 182 1 PRELIMINARY: An Introduction to Obscurity and a Defence of Method. Singular Teufelsdrockh, would thou hadst told thy singular story in plain words! ... Nothing but innuendoes, figurative crocihetsj a typical Shadow, fitfully wavering, prophetico-satiric; no clear logical Picture. "How paint to the sensual eye," asks he once, "what passes in the Holy-of-Holies of Man's Soul; in what words, known to these profane times, speak even afar off of the unspeakable?" We ask in turn: Why perplex these times, profane as they are, with need• less obscurity, by omission and by commission? Not mystical only is our Professor, but whimsical; and in• volves himself ... in eye-bewildering chiaroscuro. Carlyle - Sartor Resartus To embark upon a study of the poetry and prose of Wallace Stevens by exploring the possibilities of an analogy between him and Teufelsdrb'ckh may appear bizarre, yet the points of resem• blance, not only between the two but also between Teufelsdrockh's English editor and a Stevens* critlc-in-the-abstract, are such that the exploration becomes well-nigh inescapable once conceived. The possibilities are such, at least, as to facilitate an orderly introduction to the thesis of this study. There is, initially, the fact to face that the outcry against obscurity contained in the epigraph of this Introduction has often been voiced by the critics of Stevens and with more cause than Teufelsdrb'ckh's editor could show. As the composer of an esthetic theory couched almost wholly in terms both idiosyncratic and ambig• uous, Stevens must inevitably evoke the kind of response expressed by Graham Hough: The critical essays (of Stevens] either say, with ponder• ous mannerism, nothing at all; or something so elemen• tary that one can hardly believe It to be the result of such an elaborate procedure... Outside his own peculiar poetic vein he cannot have been a very intelligent man. This is not a thing that can be said of many poets and one would not wish to say it of Stevens, except that the pretensions to a speculative intelligence bulk so 2 largely in his work. Stranger still, the subject of these meandering pronouncements - the relation between reality and Imagination - is the very one that lies at the centre of his poetry.1 If the prose of The Necessary Angel and Opus Posthumous can have this effect, it is not surprising that Stevens' poetry, based as ' it is on his theory, should elicit displays of animosity and acrid wit of the kind used by Winters who, in objecting to Stevens* "perverse ingenuity in confusing the statement of essentially simple themes," characterized the poetry by quoting Stevens* poem "The Revolutionists Stop For Orangeade": Hang a feather by your eye Nod and look a little sly.2 The analogy between the obscurity of Teufelsdrockh and that of Stevens is not trivial. There are at least two kinds of obscurity - that amorphous kind which comes from vagueness of motive or vacillation in the execution of idea and act, and that unavoidable kind which comes when one seeks to embody the ineffable. Both are equally Indefinable in terms of a "clear logical Picture." But Teuf elsdrb'ckh had his' defense; deliberate obscurity is the only way open, in "profane times," to speak "of the unspeakable." One of the products of this analogy then, is a pronouncement that the purpose of this present study of Stevens' work is to provide a like defense for him by proving that the element of obscurity in his work is a necessary and deliberate aspect of his attempt to speak the unspeakable in honest speech. It may here be objected that what one man finds abstruse is to another obtuse, that Teufelsdrockh's philosophy was not really obscure, and that allegations of obscurity in writers usually arise because of a penchant in buffoons like Teufelsdrbckh's 3 editor for treating private misreadings as though they were public. Indeed, the probability of such an objection actually occurring can be.adequately assessed by reference to the fact that an ear• lier version of this study of Stevens was rejected on the grounds that it made abstruse what else was perfectly clear to everyone. In face of such objections, it is not enough to apostrophize the perversity of the gods, nor is it possible to become an apostate from the view that Stevens, by deliberate obscurations, sought to bring into being the ineffable. An apologia is needed that will Justify both the attribution of obscurity to Stevens1 work and the method used in this study to bring that obscurity to bear. It is easy enough to prove that Stevens was an advocate of obscurity in poetry. Both the superficial statement and the illustration provided by the poem "Man Carrying Thing" make the point evident: The poem must resist the intelligence Almost successfully. Illustration? A brune figure in winter evening resists Identity. The thing he carries resists The most necessitous sense. Accept them, then, As secondary (parts not quite perceived- Of the obvious whole, uncertain particles Of the certain solid, the primary free from doubt, Things floating like the first hundred flakes of snow Out .of a storm we must endure all night, Out of a storm of secondary things), A horror of thoughts that suddenly are real.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Wallace Stevens
    Classic Poetry Series Wallace Stevens - poems - Publication Date: 2004 Publisher: PoemHunter.Com - The World's Poetry Archive A High-Toned Old Christian Woman Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus, The conscience is converted into palms, Like windy citherns hankering for hymns. We agree in principle. That's clear. But take The opposing law and make a peristyle, And from the peristyle project a masque Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness, Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last, Is equally converted into palms, Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm, Madame, we are where we began. Allow, Therefore, that in the planetary scene Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed, Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade, Proud of such novelties of the sublime, Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk, May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres. This will make widows wince. But fictive things Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince. Wallace Stevens www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 2 Anecdote of the Jar I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.
    [Show full text]
  • Fall 2000 the Wallace Stevens Journal
    The Wallace Stevens Journal Special Issue: Stevens in Late 20th-Century Culture A Publication of The Wallace Stevens Society, Inc. Volume 24 Number 2 Fall 2000 The Wallace Stevens Journal Volume 24 Number 2 Fall 2000 Special Issue: Stevens in Late 20th-Century Culture Edited by Angus Cleghorn Contents Charles Baxter, August Kleinzahler, Adrienne Rich: Contemporary Stevensians and the Problem of “Other Lives” —Stephen Burt 115 Mark Strand’s Inventions of Farewell —Christopher R. Miller 135 Wallace Stevens, Armand Schwerner, and “The The” —Norman Finkelstein 151 Wallace Stevens and A. R. Ammons as Men on the Dump —Gyorgyi Voros 161 Wallace Stevens’ “Second Selves”and the Nostalgia of Discursiveness —Willard Spiegelman 176 Wallace Stevens’ Influence on the Construction of Gay Masculinity by the Cuban Orígenes Group —Eric Keenaghan 187 The Theoretical Afterlife of Wallace Stevens —Anca Rosu 208 Poems 221 Reviews 225 News and Comments 228 Cover Art from “The Man on the Dump” Charcoal drawing by Alexis W. Serio The Wallace Stevens Journal EDITOR John N. Serio POETRY EDITOR ART EDITOR BOOK REVIEW EDITOR H. L. Hix Kathryn Jacobi George S. Lensing EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS EDITORIAL BOARD Thomas O. Hodgson Milton J. Bates A. Walton Litz Maureen Kravec Jacqueline V. Brogan James Longenbach Hope Steele Robert Buttel Glen MacLeod Eleanor Cook Marjorie Perloff TECHNICAL ASSISTANTS Alan Filreis Joan Richardson Richard Austin B. J. Leggett Melita Schaum Claudette J. VanEss George S. Lensing Lisa M. Steinman The Wallace Stevens Society, Inc. PRESIDENT ADVISORY BOARD John N. Serio Milton J. Bates Joseph Duemer Owen E. Brady Kathryn Jacobi Robert Buttel George S.
    [Show full text]
  • A Magazine of Verse Edited by Harriet Monroe October 1921
    Vol. XIX No. I A Magazine of Verse Edited by Harriet Monroe October 1921 Sur ma Guzzla Gracile by Wallace Stevens Hesperides, by H. D. From City Lanes by Loureine Aber Karle Wilson Baker Maurine Smith 543 Cass Street, Chicago $3.00 per Year Single Numbers 25c Your June number renewed me wonderfully—an absolutely joyous thing! Go to it, hammer and tongs! Infuse a little beauty, joy, spirit, pain into the life of today. Did I say a little?—Oceans of them !—A Canadian subscriber Vol. XIX No. I POETRY for OCTOBER, 1921 PAGE Sur ma Guzzla Gracile Wallace Stevens I Palace of the Babies—Misery of Don Joos,t—Doctor of Geneva—Gubbinal—Snow Man—Tea at the Palaz of Hoon—Cuban Doctor—Another Weeping Woman—Man­ ner of Addressing Clouds—Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb—The Load of Sugar-Cane—Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores From City Lanes Loureine Abcr 10 City Wed—If—Elevator Man—Bereft—Old Man—Girl-- Death Poems Maurine Smith 14 Joy—Ceremony—First Comer—Wind—Swallows Brush a Pool Three Small Poems Karle Wilson Baker 16 To Get Wisdom.—Meekness and Pride—Courage Not in the Whirlwind Karle Wilson Baker 17 Keep My Hand Louise Driscoll 17 Under the Cliff Miriam Allen deFord 18 Shadow Canyon—Themes—Will it be Like This? Sic Passim—Recalled Joseph Andrew Galahad 10 Sea Quatrains I-V Grant H. Code 23 Fragilities Nelson Antrim Crawford 24 Song—Lake—Companionship—Impotence—Branches Hesperides H. D. 26 Fragment XXXVI—Song—At Baia Poetry and the Allied Arts H.
    [Show full text]
  • O Imperador Do Sorvete E Outros Poemas
    WALLACE STEVENS O imperador do sorvete e outros poemas Seleção, tradução, apresentação e notas Paulo Henriques Britto Edição revista e ampliada 14440-miolo-poemas-Wallace-Stevens.indd 3 10/20/17 11:47 AM Copyright ©1923, 1931, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955 by Wallace Stevens Copyright renovado © 1984 by Holly Stevens Publicado mediante acordo com a Alfred A. Knopf, selo de Knopf Doubleday Group, uma divisão da Penguin Random House, LLC Esta antologia foi feita a partir de: Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose. Grafia atualizada segundo o Acordo Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa de 1990, que entrou em vigor no Brasil em 2009. Capa Victor Burton Foto de capa Bettmann/ Getty Images Preparação Silvia Massimini Felix Revisão Silvana Salerno Angela das Neves Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (CIP) (Câmara Brasileira do Livro, SP, Brasil) Stevens, Wallace, 1879-1955 O imperador do sorvete e outros poemas / Wallace Stevens ; seleção, tradução, apresentação e notas Paulo Henriques Britto. — 1ª- ed. rev. e ampl. — São Paulo : Companhia das Letras, 2017. Título original : Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose. ISBN 978-85-359-3008-5 1. Poesia norte-americana I. Título. 17-08012 CDD-811.3 Índice para catálogo sistemático: 1. Poesia : Literatura norte-americana 811.3 [2017] Todos os direitos desta edição reservados à EDITORA SCHWARCZ S.A. Rua Bandeira Paulista, 702, cj. 32 04532-002 — São Paulo — SP Telefone: (11) 3707-3500 www.companhiadasletras.com.br www.blogdacompanhia.com.br facebook.com/companhiadasletras instagram.com/companhiadasletras twitter.com/cialetras 14440-miolo-poemas-Wallace-Stevens.indd 4 10/20/17 11:47 AM Sumário Apresentação ................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • ENG 351 Lecture 13 1 Well, I Made an Outrageous Statement When We Got
    ENG 351 Lecture 13 1 Well, I made an outrageous statement when we got to Robert Frost and quoted one of my favorite professors who stated Robert Frost was probably the best American poet of the 20th century so far. Well so far. The 20th century is over. You wouldn’t know it sometimes. But as far as that goes, the next two poets that we’ll be reading, Stevens and William Carlos Williams, who are different writers but who share some similarities. They’re my favorites. I would hate to do without Frost, but I think in the long run I’d hate more to do without Stevens. I’ll try to convince you of some of that. Born in 1879 and died in 1955, 76. Much has been made about Stevens — the fact that Stevens was an insurance man. Well, he wasn’t exactly an insurance man but he was an executive at the Hartford in Connecticut. His father was an attorney. He went to Harvard for three years but he studied modern languages and then later realized that he needed to make money so he went to law school. It was New York University law school. He practiced for a while, the partnership failed, and then he went into the legal department of the Hartford Insurance Company and he was, apparently, a successful insurance executive. He was vice-president of that firm. There’s a legend that the people that Wallace Stevens worked with didn’t even know he was a poet until he won the Pulitzer Prize, that he kept it from them, that it was all top secret.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sensuous Order, Faith and Love in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens
    Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Masters Theses & Specialist Projects Graduate School 8-1-1972 The eS nsuous Order, Faith and Love in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens Sheila Conway Western Kentucky University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Conway, Sheila, "The eS nsuous Order, Faith and Love in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens" (1972). Masters Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 1020. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1020 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses & Specialist Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE SENSUOUS ORDER, FAITH, AND LOVE IN THE POETRY OF WALLACE STEVENS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of English Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirenents for the Degree Master of Arts Sheila M. Conway August, 1972 THE SENSUOUS ORDER, FAITH, AND LOVE IN THE POETRY OF WALLACE STEVENS APPROVED 7 9 (Date) Director of Thesis 77? c T 0e&n of the Gradusrte College ACKNOWLEDGMENTS With gratitude I wish to express my appreciation for the encouragement and help received in the completion of my graduate studies and thesis to Dr. William E. McMahon, my director, to his wife and member of my com- mittee, Dr. Dorothy McMahon, and to Dr. Nancy Davis who very kindly and generously gave of her time in reading this thesis and serving as a member of my committee.
    [Show full text]
  • View / Open Summers Oregon 0171A 10923.Pdf
    LAUGHTER SHARED OR THE GAMES POETS PLAY: THE ETHICS AND AESTHETICS OF IRONY IN POSTWAR AMERICAN POETRY by STEPHEN J. SUMMERS A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2014 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Stephen J. Summers Title: Laughter Shared or the Games Poets Play: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Irony in Postwar American Poetry This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of English by: Mark Whalan Chairperson John Gage Core Member Paul Peppis Core Member Mark Johnson Institutional Representative and Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research and Innovation; Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2014 ii © 2014 Stephen J. Summers iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Stephen J. Summers Doctor of Philosophy Department of English June 2014 Title: Laughter Shared or the Games Poets Play: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Irony in Postwar American Poetry During and after the First World War, English-language poets employed various ironic techniques to address war’s dark absurdities. These methods, I argue, have various degrees of efficacy, depending upon the ethics of the poetry’s approach to its reading audience. I judge these ethical discourses according to a poem’s willingness to include its readers in the process of poetic construction, through a shared ironic connection. My central ethical test is Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative and Jurgen Habermas’s conception of discourse ethics.
    [Show full text]
  • Postprint : Author's Final Peer-Reviewed Version
    This item is the archived peer-reviewed author-version of: Windblown ceremonies in search of Vocalissimus: an interview with Matt Barber on his composition To the roaring wind Reference: Eeckhout Bart.- Windblow n ceremonies in search of Vocalissimus: an interview w ith Matt Barber on his composition To the roaring w ind The Wallace Stevens journal - ISSN 0148-7132 - Baltimore, Johns hopkins univ press, 43:2(2019), p. 152-167 Full text (Publisher's DOI): https://doi.org/10.1353/WSJ.2019.0019 To cite this reference: https://hdl.handle.net/10067/1642630151162165141 Institutional repository IRUA WSJ 43.2 Interview - 1 Windblown Ceremonies in Search of Vocalissimus: An Interview with Matt Barber on His Composition To the Roaring Wind BART EECKHOUT MATT BARBER is a composer, performer, and teacher who studied at the Juilliard School in New York and the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. He plays the bassoon and the recorder, is a conductor with a repertoire ranging from Bach to Xenakis, and has taught composition and computer music courses at various institutions. In 2011, Matt published a 22- minute song cycle for soprano and percussion ensemble entitled To the Roaring Wind. Curious to find out more, we decided to get in touch with him in the context of this special issue. He embraced our suggestion of an interview, which was conducted by e-mail in the spring of 2019. To allow us to prepare for the conversation, Matt sent us the musical score as well as a weblink to a recording with scrolling score.1 For those readers who find score-gazing unhelpful or distracting, a stage recording of a 2011 performance, on the occasion of the work’s premiere, is also available online.2 Bart Eeckhout: Because the readers of this journal can’t be expected to be knowledgeable about contemporary composers, let’s start with a few questions about yourself.
    [Show full text]
  • Tee Revisionary Rhetoric of Double Negative, Nd Poems
    THE FEMINIST ROMANTIC: TEE REVISIONARY RHETORIC OF DOUBLE NEGATIVE, N-D POEMS, AND GYNeTEXT by Susan Drodge A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Memorial University of Newfoundland October, 1996 St. John's Newfoundland National Liirary Bibliothhque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibhographiques 395 WelIington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON KIA OM Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prster, distriiiuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la fome de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format dectronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts &om it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent &e imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract "The Feminist Romantic" argues for the revision of romantic rhetoric and structures in three Canadian feminist texts: Daphne Matlatt and Betsy Warland's Double Negative (1988), Phyllis Webb's Naked Poem (l965), and Lola Lemire Tostevin's Gyno-Tea (1983). In its analysis of the textual challenges posed by contemporary feminist writing, it recurrently reads the various rhetorical tropes of these three texts against the poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley-poetry likewise engaged on both thematic and structural levels with subjectivity and its ensuing problernatics.
    [Show full text]
  • Wallace Stevens, James Merrill, and the Way of the Dandy
    INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9020155 Stevens, James Merrill, and the way of the dandy Fuller, Janice Moore, Ph.D. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1989 UMI 300 N.
    [Show full text]
  • Transcendentalism, Mysticism and Imagination in the Poetic Discourse of Jones Very, Wallace Stevens and Stanley Cavell
    UNIVERSITAT DE VALÈNCIA FACULTAT DE FILOLOGIA, TRADUCCIÓ I COMUNICACIÓ DEPARTAMENT DE FILOLOGIA ANGLESA I ALEMANYA Transcendentalism, Mysticism and Imagination in the Poetic Discourse of Jones Very, Wallace Stevens and Stanley Cavell PhD Program in Languages, Literatures and Cultures and their Applications Code 3135 Ph Dissertation submitted by Inmaculada Rodrigo Minguet Supervised by Dra. Anna Mª Brígido Corachán Dr. Paul Scott Derrick Grisanti Valencia, September 2019 Transcendentalism, Mysticism and Imagination in the Poetic Discourse of Jones Very, Wallace Stevens and Stanley Cavell A mis seres queridos, siempre en mi pensamiento. Para siempre en mi corazón. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout the writing of this dissertation I have received a great deal of support and assistance. I would first like to thank my tutors, Dra. Anna Brígido Corachán and Dr. Paul Scott Derrick Grisanti for their valuable guidance. They were always there willing to help me with the tools that I needed to successfully complete this dissertation. I find myself very fortunate to have met such good teachers with enormous humanity. I would also like to thank my friends and workmates who provided me with happy distraction during all this time of my research. Finally, I would like to express my warmest gratitude to my family for their wholehearted support and to Vicente, always there for me with wise counsel, for every single day and for all those weekends at home. ABSTRACT The growth of self-consciousness throughout history takes place in a context of duality between a subjective and an objective awareness of the world. Rational thinking and speech, mind and words shape the individual´s concern with the knowledge of his/her nature as a physical and a spiritual being.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: TEXTBOOK COMPOSERS: a PERFORMANCE STUDY of AMERICAN MODERNISM
    ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: TEXTBOOK COMPOSERS: A PERFORMANCE STUDY OF AMERICAN MODERNISM Josiah Stocker, Doctor of Musical Arts, 2019 Dissertation Directed By: Professor Rita Sloan University of Maryland School of Music, Piano Division The technical difficulties we face and the interpretive decisions we make when playing 20 th century music are essentially the same as with music from earlier periods. When playing more recent works, we benefit from first-hand accounts which are more readily available, and have greater interpretive freedom in playing music that does not have an established tradition. Studying a composer’s writings on theory will aid in analyzing a piece which may not follow traditional rules of form and harmony, and descriptions by their contemporaries can help us in understanding the printed markings in pieces which contain improvisation, extended techniques, or other unusual instructions. For my dissertation, I have addressed some difficulties unique to American music from the early- to mid-twentieth century. I selected music for three programs, using scores, the writings of composers, critics, and performers, as well as recordings, in my background research. My program notes document this process, and present conclusions which I hope will be useful to other musicians. The repertoire includes art song, chamber music, and solo piano music by Henry Cowell, Elliott Carter, and Vincent Persichetti. These three composers wrote books and essays about the theoretical and artistic ideas behind their own music and that of their contemporaries. Cowell’s groundbreaking New Musical Resources gave a remarkably concise and prescient overview of possible innovations in rhythm, texture, and harmony, many of which are worked out in his later compositions.
    [Show full text]