Stevens and Aristotle: the Mimetic Connection

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STEVENS AND ARISTOTLE: THE MIMETIC CONNECTION

Barbra Nightingale

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

College of Humanities in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, Florida

December, 1985 STEVENS AND ARISTOTLE: THE MIMETIC CONNECTION

Barbra Nightingale

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor , Dr. Howard D. Pearce , Department of English, and hus been approved by the members of her supervisory committee. It was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.

SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

Thesis Advisor

ii ABSTRACT

Author: Barbra Nightingale

Title: Stevens and Aristotle: The Mimetic Connection

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Degree: Master of Arts

Year: 1985

A detailed analysis of Wallace Ste vens's poetics reveals close parallels with Aristotle's theory of mimesis.

These parallels are most notable in regard to the definition of mimesis as it pertains to poetry, language , nature, r eality , and i mag i n a t i on . An exploration of thes e parallels firmly establishes Stevens as an Aristotelian , and therefore provides an important aid in understanding his use of poetic devices such as diction, m~~aphor, and persona.

i i i CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter One: Mimesis, Language, and the Poet 8

Chapter Two: Nature and Reality 30

Conclusion 46

iv INTRODUCTION

Wallace Stevens's poetry and poetics have been much

discussed since mid-century, and he has been connected

or compared to such literary figures as Dante, Milton,

Whitman, Emerson, Eliot, Cummings, and Williams as well ....- as associated with major movements such as neo-Classi-~ cism, Romanticism, Imagism, and Modernism (Willard 103-05)

He has even been linked with Plato, with one critic call-

ing Stevens's "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" the "ultimate Plato" (Sheehan 165); but except for oblique references, acknowledgment and comparison of Stevens's affinities with Aristotle concerning mimetic theory is

lacking. That connection seems worth exploring on the basis of the relationships between Aristotle's and

Stevens's thoughts on nature, reality, imagination, and language insofar as they relate to mimetic theory, and such comparisons might show how these theories operate in Stevens's work.

Observing Stevens's kinship to Ari~otle might /' begin with an objection to Donald Sheehan's calling Stevens

"the ultimate Plato." Sheehan's article, "The Ultimate

Plato: A Reading of Wallace Stevens' [sic] 'Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,"' begins well enough with the generally 2 agreed upon idea that the poem, a "complicated argument about truth, reality , and our creative relation to them, is, in its own terms, a fiction" (Sheehan 166). Sheehan allows that the poem tells us that in order to know the world, we must see and accept it , yet recreate it through our imagination , without which we can never have a full understanding of reality (166). He also says that "this knowledge and affirmation are never permanent since, as they involve fiction, they are subject to change" (166)

But Sheehan further states that " Notes" is a "comedy" which "is, in a general sense, Platonic. And so the speaker is concerned throughout t he first part to disti n - guish his Platon i sm from a ny relig i ous Neo-P l atonism" (169)

The basis for Sheehan's assertion centers on the first stanza of It Must Be Abstract:

Begin, ephebe, by perceiving the idea Of this invention , th i s invented wo rld , The inconceivable i dea of the sun. (Palm 207 )

Sheehan states that " the idea" corresponds to Plato's ideal forms, and that "The speak er therefore insists , as does Plato 1n t he Republic, upo n the non-hypothet i ca l nature of his first principle" (169). If this "first idea i s of a "non-hypothetical nature," then why does

Stevens s tate late r that " The first i dea is a n i mag ined thing" (Palm 213)? This last statement is antithetical to Plato's theory of ideas or " forms" becau se , for P l ato , 3

reality is not an "imagined thing" but an absolute truth.

Stevens is telling us that even the idea of something,

the abstraction itself, is a product of imagination.

In fact, the entire poem is anti-Platonic right

from the prologue where Stevens tells us that "truth"

in poetry is to be cherished more than the wisdom in

"the extremest book of the wisest man" and that he clings to it as an "uncertain light" because it stems more from

inspiration ("light / In which I meet you") than will

(Sukenick 136) Plato felt that "a poet's activity leads men away from truth" (Adams 11), and that the poet's inspiration is akin to madness because "all good poets

compose their beautiful poems, not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed" (Plato 14). Stevens's prologue also states that the "single certain truth"

./ 1s "equal" to reality because both change, and that there is a "moment" that brings "peace," and in that moment is clarity and truth, which disputes Plato's claim that the poet suffers a loss of reason when composing poetry, as well as his claim that the poem is not the work of a human being, but the work of God who "possesses" the poet. Also antithetical to Stevens is Plato's insistence that sensory experience is an inferior form of expression and not cognitive. Plato"regards objects we perceive through the senses as merely copies of ideas thus twice removed from reality" (Adams 11) Stevens argues 4

against Plato in telling us "that we must begin by per

ceiving the idea of our experience" (Powell 804).

I do not mean to discard Plato's treatises as use-

less in any application toward Stevens, as it must be

remembered that Aristotle was Plato's pupil, and that

much of Aristotelian theory is merely an expansion as

well as a dissension from Platonic theory. But it cannot

be disputed that Stevens, like Aristotle, exalts poetry

as a true art , good in and of itself and not dependent

on prior f orms for its legitimacy. The very fact that

" Notes" is an example of this unique exaltation, a for- mulation of ideas on what poetry is, that 1s, a bridge between the imagination and reality that leads to aware ness and understan~ing of a world that lS constantly changing and by its very structure mimicking the order

inherent in change , shows it to be primari l y Aristotelian

in philosophy.

Since, to echo Coleridge's truisms, Western critica l theory stems from Plato and Aristotle, and is still di vided between inclinations we think of as Pl a tonic and

Aristotelian , I shall take Aristotle's mimetic theories as a basis for looking at Stevens ' s poems. Aristotle's main point of d e parture from Plato 's theories is that

Aristotle believes art is imitation, but not the inferior sort of "copying" that Plato maintains i s the basis of all a rt. Plato viewed art, especia l ly poetry, as "good" 5

only when it serves to teach a moral lesson, but still

never able to attain the perfection of an ideal form.

Ar i stat 1 e differs in that he sees poetry as a means

of representing forms that exist in nature and that mimesis

(imitating these forms) leads one to an understanding

of meaning as a form of truth in abstraction. Art can

therefore be "good" as well as pleasurable and does not/

have to be didactic.

Stevens follows these Aristotelian concepts in that / he believes poetry is an act of mimesis natural to man.

In his essay "Theoretical and Atheoretical in Stevens,"

J. Hillis Miller confirms that for Stevens "the imagination

is part of nature, or one of the forces of nature" (278); thus man is imitating nature when he uses his imagination in creating poetry. While the concept of "imagination" does not develop in Aristotle, it is inherent in his beliefs and treatment of poetry. It 1s one of the tools of thought a poet uses in developing his ideas and perhaps the essential component in the aesthetic pleasure taken by his audience.

In a rather oblique reference to Stevens's connections to Aristotle, Denis Donoghue states that

it was enough for Stevens, and it is enough for many of his readers, that the poem conform to the nature of the poet, to his "progressive mental states," and that that [sic] nature be handsome. (Aristotle allowed that a man may persuade in this way.) (229) 6

I hope to make clear in this paper just what Aristotle's

and Stevens's affinities are regarding nature.

Another tantalizing reference to Stevens and Aristotle

1s made by Edward Kessler in a discussion of "The Man

on the Dump" wherein Kessler states that Stevens "considers

art as Aristotelian imitations that have attempted to

formalize the transient things of the world, its 'dew"'

( 229) . And in discussing another poem, "In a Bad Time,"

Kessler seems to forget these Aristotelian imitations

when he says that Stevens "compels the audience to see

tragedy as human action, not as a literary form, Aristotle's

imitation of an action" (51). Kessler ignores Aristotle's definition of tragic imitation as being based on the

imitation of "men involved in action" (Aristotle 4) and as a basic pleasurable instinct, which 1s the basis of

Stevens's own view.

Frank Doggett says of "The Candle a Saint" that the visionary image of night in the poem is "the abstracted goddess Nox, and that Stevens calls her 'moving and being'~·

having in mind perhaps the Aristotelian idea that in movement being emerges" ~{177).

Since Doggett takes the parallel no further, these few references to Stevens's reflections of mimetic theory are all I find linking him to Aristotle. I feel there is need for further consideration of such implications in Stevens's thought. My discussion will concentrate 7 on correlating Stevens's mimetic theories with those of Aristotle as opposed to Plato and will show the error of Alan Perlis's statement that in "Notes Toward a Supreme

Fiction" there is prevalent "an Aristotelian notion not often found in Stevens: art is an imitation of nature"

( 95) . This notion may indeed be pervasive throughout

Stevens's poetry and poetics . CHAPTER ONE

MIMESIS, LANGUAGE, AND THE POET

Wallace Stevens shows affinities to Aristotle in his theory of poetry, especially as it relates to language, nature, reality, and imagination. In addition, he reflects

Aristotle's concern with the purpose of poetry, which is, ultimately, pleasure. That Stevens agrees with Aristotle on the mimetic nature of poetry can be seen throughout

Stevens's poetics. In Adagia he makes a cryptic statement:

"Aristotle is a skeleton" (OP 168). He immediately follows that remark with "The body is the great poem" (OP 168).

While the Adagia was not intended as a consecutive series of related statements, the implication in this case is intriguing. While some might take Stevens to mean that a skeleton signifies death and decay, it is also the frame upon which the body is built. This body, if built upon Aristotle's skeleton, results in "the great poem."

It can therefore be imagined that Stevens believes that in order to be "great," the flesh and muscle that are poetry must be built upon the framework of Aristotelian beliefs.

Foremost among Aristotle's poetic beliefs is the idea that art is imitation. In the Poetics Aristotle states that the process of imitation is "natural to mankind

8 9

[and] men Find pleasure in viewing representations

because it turns out that they learn and inFer what each

thing is" (Aristotle 7). D. B. Hardison explains that

For Aristotle "pleasure must be considered a basic element

oF imitative art" (Aristotle 92), that element being

the purpose oF poetry. This element is what distinguishes

Aristotle's view oF imitation From Plato's view oF "copy-

ing"; there is pleasure gained From learning.

Stevens agrees with Aristotle's stance and reFutes

Plato in "The Pure Good oF Theory." The section entitled

Description oF a Platonic Person describes someone who

does not change, "who was what people had been and still

were," an "invalid," who was "ill oF a question like

a malady" because he was "unhappy about the sense of hap-

piness" (Palm 266). Happiness and pleasure in poetry,

For Plato, are not accepted goals; however, they constitute the Function oF poetry For Aristotle and For Stevens, /~·

For whom their absence would make the world a bleak and barren place, hard to understand. This agreement involves the sense one makes out oF what is seen; For Stevens the synthesis oF imagination and reality is what a poet eFFects in creating a poem.

Stevens has said that poetry is "a pleasure oF agreement with the radiant and productive world" in which a poet lives (OP 57) ThereFore, the poet's Function is "to help people live their lives" (NA 29), not by 10

preaching to them, but rather by making his "imagination

theirs" ( NA 29) . Both Stevens and Aristotle dispute

Plato's assertion that poetry must be didactic. Aristotle

states that artists imitate actions that are "noble or

base since human character regularly conForms to these

distinctions" (4), and Stevens asserts that "the role

oF the poet is not to be Found in morals" (NA 28). Stevens

and Aristotle clearly agree that the Function oF poetry

is to provide pleasure and knowledge, which is gained

through the recognition that imitations (poetry) imitate

\ "what actually happens in lire" (Aristotle 7). This

agreement on the Function oF poetry illuminates section

\.nine oF It Must Give Pleasure From "Notes Toward a Supreme

Fiction" in that pleasure leads to as well as results

in recognition: "I enjoy like them, I Like men besides,

like men in light secluded, I Enjoying angels" (Palm

231), because

These things at least comprise An occupation, an exercise, a work,

A thing Final in itselF and, thereFore, good. (Palm 232)

What is good is the recognition that process is good,

and men take pleasure in observing that lire mimics these

processes:

And we enjoy like men, the way a leaF Above the table spins its constant spin, So that we look at it with pleasure, look

At it spinning its eccentric measure. Perhaps, 1 1

The man-hero is not the exceptional monster, But he that of repetition is most master. (Palm 232)

Sheehan explains It Must Give Pleasure as a question of the rational versus the irrational and answers the question in term of pleasure providing knowledge only of the irrational because the search for truth through imagination, while pleasurable, is "irrational in that it is unpredictable" (174). He concludes that the

poem's central implication [is] that given the capacity to abstract and to change, man's imagination is not only adequate before reality but is itself mare interesting and delightful. ( 174 )

This 1s a statement Stevens never makes, but he does say that imagination and reality are interdependent , and that "poetic truth is factual truth [that] includes everything that the imagination includes" (NA 59-61)

The imagination is not better than reality, but an inex- tricable part of it that shapes reality into what we know.

Sheehan goes an to interpret the lines

To find the real, To be stripped of every fiction except one,

The fiction of an absolute (Palm 230) as meaning that "man's pleasure is his greatest abstraction a nd th a t hi s imaginative powe r is his d eepest fict i on"

( 174) This passage can be read i n other ways, such as seeing the absolute fiction as being the agent of synthesis betwee n the real and the ima gined, nat the 12

"supreme fiction" (poetry), but a bridge between reality

and imagination. Stevens asks what difference it makes ~

whether experience takes place in the imagination or

reality; is the experience any less satisfying because

of where it takes place? He is not excluding one for

the other. The point 1s that all experience brings a-

wareness and knowledge and creates the beings we are.

"I have not but I am and as I am, I am" (Palm 231).

This experience is knowledge abstracted because it is

universal, which brings pleasure. It is the repetitive

process, the "going round I And round and round , the

merely going round, I Until merely going round is a final

good" (Palm 232), that Stevens claims men enjoy because

it is the knowledge that nature, like all things, is

\,cyclical, changing, and that change is good. The "first ·"' idea" is the "fiction which results from feeling" (Palm- ··

233), a feeling which is "more than rational distortion"

and which Stevens hopes will soon be recognized in the

academies ("Sorbonne") that expound upon only rational

thought, Platonic thought, so that they can all be "pleased

that the irrational is rational" (Palm 233).

Ronald Sukenick states that since pleasure (one

of the final goods) is an end in itself, "it 1s not the

exemplar of men's ideals but whoever, like the

birds, can direct his life most completely tot he repe-

titian of self-rewarding processes the pattern 13 to imitate" (158). This pleasure in process and imitation is also apparent in "The Pleasures of Merely Circulating," where patterns of circles are presented. We are told that "things go round and again go round / Has rather a classical sound" (Palm 97), wherein the "classical sound" could be read as an allusion to Aristotle and the function of poetry, as well as its relationship to nature's circular processes. In any event, the allusion to Aristotle's belief in the pleasurable function of poetry is clearly stated by the title of the final section of "Notes ToiVard a Supreme Fiction": It Must Give

Pleasure, the "It" meaning the "Supreme Fiction" which is poetry.

Another part of the Aristotelian framework includes the belief in the poet as maker. In the Poetics, Aristotle .,----- creates the words "poetry" and "poet" from the Greek word poietike, which, according to Hardison, means "productive science" stemming from the verb poiein which

------~means "to make" (Aristotle 64). Hardison clarifies the term poietike as actually referring to the "art or techne of doing something, not the act or product. To preserve this sense, Aristotle's poietike should be trans- lated 'the art of making' rather than 'making'" (64-65). ----- Thus, -Aristotle seems to think of the poet as being not merely a poet, but a "maker" of things, a creator, and 14 that poetry is an acquired skill, not "divine inspiration" or madness as Plato suggests.

Stevens agrees with Aristotle that the poet is

"maker" as seen in "The Idea of Order at Key West" where the poet's "Blessed rage for order" (Palm 98) is so blessed because i~ - ~omes from man's deepest instinct: imitation .

Aristotle states that the "process of imitation 1s natural to mankind from childhood on" (7) thereby linking, as

Hardison explains, "man's proneness to imitation" with

"man's instinct for harmony and rhythm" making them one

(Aristotle 91), which gives man the capacity or ability to "make" poetry. Stevens's poet as maker also creates in imitation of what he sees. What he creates is not, however, merely a copy, because what he sees is unique to his vision and perception and therefore original.

So when the singer in "Ideas of Order" sings a song that mingles with the sounds of the ocean, she is imitating yet creating at the same time:

But is was she and not the sea we heard,

For she was the maker of the song she sang. The ever-hooded tragic gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. (Palm 97)

The poet's perception of the world becomes his material for imitation. He creates with a "maker's rage to order"

(Palm 97) the particulars of his universe. 15

The way in which the poet orders his world is through

language, which according to Aristotle is the means by

which an imitation is carried out. Rhythm and harmony

are "given to us by nature" (Aristotle 7-8), as is imi-

tation in general. Rhythm can be understood to involve

stress beats, while harmony is a relation between tones.

Since rhythm and harmony are naturally occurring phenomena,

the poet who consciously orders the use of words considered

to be rhythmical and harmonious is following mimetic

practice. Stevens follows such an order in "Idea of

Order at Key West," .w.h erein the sounds of the sea are

- everywhere evident: "She sang beyond the genius of the

sea I But it was she and not the sea we heard I

That we should ask this often as she sang" (Palm ' ----- 97-98). The sibilant sounds mimic the sea, bringing

the image of the sea to life and adding an intensity

of meaning. We learn from the sea, yet are creators

of our perception of the sea. It is the imitation that

gives us pleasure, not the sea itself, since it was "she

and not the sea we heard."

"Bringing out the music of the eccentric sounds

of words is no different in principle," says Stevens,

"from bringing out their form and its eccentricities"

( OP 32) . "Peter Quince at the Clavier" is ty-pical of

sound and rhythm contributing to form. Each section \.... is like a musical movement, and the language of the 16 poem utilizes musical terms such as "The winds were like her maids. I The basses of their beings throb I

In witching chords and their thin blood I Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna" (Palm 9-10). If Stevens is applying Aristo- telian theory, the use of musical terms as well as allit- eration, assonance and consonance is given reason and understanding. These rhythms and harmonies aid us in making sense of a poem. We can look at lines like "But fictive things I Wink as they wi ll. Wink most when widows wince" (Palm 78) , which at first may seem like childish nonsense , but when read with the k nowledge that Aristotle and Stevens believe i n the order and music s u c h sounds create, we come to a greate r unders tanding of the po e m.

"A High-Toned Old Chr i stian Woman" is a poem ostensibly advocating disorder, yet the lang uage the poem utilizes and its form point to a statement favorabl e to order , but an order of different k ind than that espoused by the old woman. The "tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk"

(Palm 78) 1s not alliterative babble but sounds imitative of religious ceremony.

Seeing the Aristotelian connection with Stevens aids in understanding Stevens's d i ction even when

S tevens himself is not much help: "If a poem seems to require a hierophantic phrase, the phrase should pass"

(OP 205). In "The Comedian as the Letter C" words like

"quotha," "panoply," and "de mesne" s end one s crambling 17 for a good dictionary. The Emperor of Ice Cream whips

"concupiscent curds," and an Arabian in "Notes" chants

"his damned hoobla-hoobla-hoobla-how." "Speech," says

Stevens, "is more than an imitation for the ear" (Palm

251); it is a recreation of language. Aristotle states that "A really distinguished style varies ordinary diction through the employment of unusual words" (39). He advocates the use of "unusual words" because such use prevents

"the diction from being ordinary and mean" (39). Stevens is following Aristotle in an effort to recreate language over and over; to make it fresh and new, not just an

"imitation for the ear."

Diction also involves the use of metaphor. Aristotle states that "the most important matter is to have skill in the use of metaphor" (41) and elevates i ts excellent use to the height of genius. Metaphor is another vehicle by which language imitates because "the ability to con struct good metaphors implies the ability to see essential similarities" (Aristotle 41). Stevens agrees with Aristotle, saying, "a poet's natural way of thinking is by way of figures" (OP 184). But Stevens goes a step further when he says in Adagia that "metaphor creates a new reality from which the original appears to be unreal" (OP 169).

However, both agree that the purpose of metaphor

seems to be to produce an agreement with reality. 18

It is the munda of the imagination in which the imaginative man delights and nat the gaunt world of reason. The pleasure is the pleasure of powers that create a truth that cannot be arrived at by reason alone, a truth that the poet recognizes by sensation. (NA 58)

Far Aristotle, as well as far Stevens, metaphor creates universals by comparing abstract ideas to concrete objects, and what is revealed by the comparison is a universal truth.

Truth and recognition are the subject of "The Pure

Goad of Theory":

Yet to speak of the whale world as metaphor Is still to stick to the contents of the mind ,

And the desire to believe in a metaphor. (Palm 257)

Metaphor reveals truth by way of its synthesis between reality and imagination. In "Nates Toward a Supreme

Fiction" Stevens grapples with the dichotomy between the real and the imagined, and the process by which they are differentiated through metaphor. The elusive "first idea becomes / The hermit in a poet's metaphors" (Palm 208), hidden and layered with fictions, but fictions that have their base in reality. Stevens says that the resemblance between things real and imagined "is significant because it creates the relation just described. It binds together.

It is the base of appearance" (NA 72). Stevens is here echoing Aristotle's view, according to Hardison, that

"language used properly accurately reflects reality"

(Aristotle 255) 19

Hardison states that "Aristotle's theory oF metaphor is based on similarities revealed rather than the diF

Ferences oF the things compared" (Aristotle 259). Stevens's theory oF metaphor is also based on resemblance, yet he deals with the idea oF the imagination merging with reality to create the resemblance and ultimately a new truth. For Aristotle, metaphor does not "break new categorial ground; it simply extends a predicate into a position which, From the standpoint oF the categories, already existed and was logically prepared For it" (Levin 28).

In Aristotle's analysis oF metaphor, Four types are mentione d: "genus to species or spe cies to genus or From s pecies to species or by analogy" (Aristotle 37).

It is in the "analogical type oF metaphor that knowledge of a significant kind is imparted" (Levin 28). Stevens also categorizes metaphor, but his types occur betwe en

"two or more parts of reality between something real and something imagined or between two imagined things" (NA 72). The most significant parallel that occurs b etween Ste vens and Aristotle is in their sense of analogy, which Stevens refers to most oFten as "re semblance." Stevens brings the imagination into focus when disc ussing me taphor b e cause "Resemblance in me taphor is an activity oF the imagination; and in metaphor the imagination is life" (NA 73).

Howe ver much Stevens Fe els meta phor lS the liFe 20

of poetry, he often suggests a pejorative sense surrounding

its use that is lacking in Aristotle. If it exists at

all in the Poetics it is in the passage where Aristotle

cautions that a "riddle" results from the " e ,< clusive

use" of metaphor (Aristotle 39) . But Stevens elaborates

as Aristotle does not, often saying that metaphor causes

one to evade reality, that man " must defy I The metaphor

that murders metaphor" (NA 84) and resist "The motive

for metaphor" that makes one shrink "from I The weight

of primary noon, I The ABC of being" (reality) (Palm

240). But however often Stevens may suggest that metaphor

is an evasive device , it is still the heart of poetry; and he he uses it, in accordance with Aristotle' s princi ples, throughout his poetry.

For Aristotle, metaphors , 1n any of their categories,

" either reflect or present an a s pect of rea lity, [and] all such operations , when brought to term bear with them accessions of knowledge" (Levin 4 4). Thus , metaphor is imitative because it c a uses relationships between obj e cts to be realize d; one thing is "like" or mimics another. Stevens "d i slikes the term 'imitation , ' but only because he thinks it means the naive copying of an e xterna l world: in its proper Ar istotel ian s e nse o f creating a form of which nature is the content, Stevens's poetry is as imitative as Pope's" (Frye 164). For Stevens, meta phor involves things that " a re ide ntified wi th eac h 21

other, yet each is identified as itself and retains that

identity" (Frye 170} "Thirteen Ways of Look ing at a

Blackbird" is evidence of Stevens's view of identity

retention:

A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one. (Palm 20)

They are alike in that they are, among other things,

a part of nature, but retain their own identitites. The

entire poem is an exercise in how metaphor and the imagination work: The mind creates relationships fashioned around a naturally oc c urring connection. Because Stevens

is an "imitative" poet, his metaphors tend toward creating a relationship between man and nature, which includes anything from fantasy to environment. As he says in

"notes" the "first idea was not shape the clouds / In imitation. The clouds preceded us" (Palm 210), mean i ng that the clouds were not an imitation of the idea of cloud, which, agrees Doggett, "proceeds from a rejection of Platon i c ideas" (802} not only because the idea i s unchanging but also because it is "an affirmation of reality for what it is: our experience" (Doggett 802).

This section also reflects Aristotl e because , as Ste v ens goes on to s ay: "W e are the mi mics. Clouds a re pedagogues"

(Palm 2D8). We learn from what exists in nature, and that is how we "mimic." According to Suzann e Juhasz, the passage "ex alts art [and artifice } as the proper 22

mediary by which man relates to nature" ( 150), in an

Aristotelian sense, because "Through metaphor man makes

nature into art" (Juhasz 150) . To say that Stevens's

"first idea" is the equivalent of Plato's "ideal forms"

as Sheehan has suggested, is to say that Stevens believes

the opposite of what he wrote, and that the idea of cloud

existed before the cloud itself.

The ultimate purpose for metaphor is, again, recogni-

tion and truth, as well as the pleasure that results

from the recognition. Whereas Aristotle concentrated

his thoughts on particular objects, Stevens tends more

toward abstraction. "By abstract Stevens apparently means artificial in its proper sense, something constructed rather than generalized" (Frye 171). This idea of arti- ficiality is hinted at in "Someone Puts a Pineapple Together":

0 juventes, 0 filii, he contemplates A wholly artificia l nature, in which The profusion of metaphor has been increased. (Palm 83)

Abstraction (metaphor) creates universals. Universals convey truths. Hardison states that Aristot l e believes

"poetry tends toward the universal in characterization, as well as structure. [The poet] produces an illu- sian of particularity, but he stresses those general qualities that seem most appropriate to his action"

(Aristotle 200). The pleasure that men take in learning

"occurs when we come to know universals or perceive the relation of the specific to the universal" (Aristotle 92) 23

This is, according to Hardison, a "key concept, for it

emphatically differentiates Aristotle's 'imitation' from

the Platonic notion of imitation as copying" (Aristotle

93).

For Aristotle, character served as the point of

universalization (as well as d i ction, and for that matter,

poetry in general) in that the traits a character pas- sesses are universal traits. In Stevens, metaphoric abstraction creates a universal truth from a particular abstraction. Thus, "an act of the mind" ( Palm 175) i s , as Riddel observes, "an act of creating , not receiving knowledge" ( 176) . What the poet creates l S a un i que version of reality , which is "the measure of his power"

(NA 23). This "power" is his ability

to abstract himself, and to withdraw with him into his abstraction the reality on which the lovers of truth insist. He must be able to abstract himself and also to abstract r eal i ty , which he does by placing it in his i ma gi n a tion. (NA 23)

The poet can accomplish this process because , as Riddel notes:

We abstract by merely being conscious , ab s traction being the given of experience. But the poet, the sel f -consc i ous modern man , not only lives by abstraction , but knows he lives by abstraction. And thus he knows that although he lives at the edge of things, he l ives in the center of himsel f where abstractions are created. ( 166).

Riddel also notes that "somewhere between the isolated self and its alien world the poem captures not an absence 24

of reality, but the only reality available to man" (177).

Stevens insists that abstractions must be based on reality.

But reality is a particular, conceptualized reality,

and it is because of its conceptualization that metaphoric

abstraction serves to universalize the particular. Stevens explains that

What the eye beholds may be the text of life. It is, nevertheless, a text that we do not write. The eye does not beget in resemblance. It sees. But the mind begets in resemblance as the painter begets in representation. (NA 76)

This "representation" is of life. It is the poet's function to bring together and present to the world these "resemblances" because, as Bernard Heringman states, the poet 1s

representative of humanity--reality. For Stevens, the poet is a microcosm, summing up in himself the whole universe, of the dichot omy and, in himself, constituting an ihtersection which results in poetry. (5)

Poetry, for Stevens, is a "fiction" that results from" the intersection of reality with imagination by way of abstraction, which then comes alive, becomes "blooded as a man by thought" (Palm 212).

The representational, or imitative function of a poet is expressed in "Asides on the Oboe":

The centrul man, the human globe, responsive As a mirror with a voice, the man of glass, Who in a million diamonds sums us up. (Palm 187)

The "mirror with a voice" metaphorically alludes to the poet who mirrors nature (the world, humanity) by his words ("diamonds"). That the "resemblance between things" 25

(NA 71) is imitative oF nature 1s expressed by Stevens

in "Three Academic Pieces" where he says that the "resem blance between things in nature" exists because "in some sense, all things resemble each other" (NA 72). Since

"poetry is a satisFying oF the desire For resemblance"

(NA 77), which is pleasurable, it satisFies one oF the requirements oF art as imitation. The resemblances themselves are oF things that resemble nature, and "although there is a relation between the subject oF the images there is no relation between the images themselves" (NA 78).

The insight gained From connecting Stevens's use oF metaphor with Aristotle's mimetic theory may be ap plied to any and all oF Stevens's highly metaphoric poe ms, such as "Someone Puts a Pineapple Together" (Palm 83) where Stevens puts Forth his own mimetic theory, asking us to see the relation between a pineapple and a "husk oF Cuba," or a "tuFted emerald"; where the poet "seeks as image a second oF the selF," related to nature and to the "true light oF the truest sun." That relation shows itselF to be "everybody's world" where "artiFice reveals itselF I As the total reality." And Finally, what all this reveals, since the ultimate purpose oF metaphor 1s truth, i s that we are all a part oF the r eality that exists within our own conceptions, that "radiant and productive atmosphere, which is liFe" (NA 62).

Another po i nt oF comparison between Aristotle and 26

Stevens concerning language is Aristotle's statement that "it is necessary far the poet himself to speak in his awn person in the poem as little as possible" (44).

Aristotle believes that if a poet does nat adhere to this rule "he is nat fulfilling his function as an imi- tatar" ( 44) . However, he makes a distinction here between types of poetry and concludes that although narrative poetry is mixed, that is, "involves statements by the poet in his awn person and also statements made by the characters" (Aristotle 268), narrative poetry is "excc;p tianal among the farms of imitation" (Aristotle 44).

Since he does nat strictly forbid speaking in "his awn person," Aristotle has left roam far much debate an this subject. Keats called this principle of nan-involvement

"negative capability," and T.S. Eliot referred to it as the "objective correlative," a term first used to indicate "the process by which the external world produces pleasurable emotion" (Holman 304). Eliot's use of the term varied from its original meaning in that

Eliot meant it to describe an objective method in which emotion can be expressed. This method involved the use of "objects, actions ar events, or a situation" (Holman

304) which produces an emotional reaction in the reader.

Another frequently used term is "aesthetic distance," which requires an author to objectify his emotions through farm (metaphor, abstraction, etc.) in order to remain 27 independent of the personal experience or emotion that precipitated the poem.

It must be remembered, however, that the type of

"poetry" that Aristotle refers to is different from what we call poetry today. Aristotle refers to a more . dramatic form (even in narrative), and the type of poetry th~t

Wallace Stevens writes is largely lyrical, though not

1n the strictest sense of the word, s1nce "lyric" refers to an extreme subjectivity and brevity not often found in Stevens. At any rate, Stevens agrees in principle with Aristotle's stance on persona in a poem, though

Stevens's view offers a d i fferent perspect i ve. Perhaps the fact that there is an a uthorial "I" in Stevens can be explained by his statement

that the principle so stated by Aristotle is cited in relation to the point that poetry is a process of the personality of the poet. The stateme nt t hat the process does n ot involve the poet as subject to the extent to which that is true, precludes direct egotism. ( NA 46)

However, Stevens maintains that there 1 s an "indirect egotism" (NA 4 6 ), and that this i ndire ct e g otism is a result of the fact that "The mind of the poet describes itself a s constantly in his p oems as the mind of the sculptor describes i tself i n hi s form s " (NA 46). Stevens insists that since poetry is a process, and since this activity cannot help involving the poet's personality , it is in fact this v e ry process that " is the element , 28

the force that keeps poetry a living thing, the moderni-

zing and ever-modern influence" (NA 45} . It 1 s as a

result of this "modernizing" that Stevens's view appears

to differ from Aristotle's. Most likely, Aristotle was

arguing against autobiographical and solipsistic poetry ,

a sort of which Stevens cannot be accused. \AJe learn

of Stevens's beliefs, but never of his private affairs.

Although the "I" in Stevens does occasionally appear,

an omniscient voice or different personal appears more

frequently, and the historical Stevens never appears

as the subject of his own poems. It is as if they were

given by a "separate author, a diff~rent poet" (Palm 251} because poetry and poets s hould be

An accretion from ourselves, intel l igent Beyond intelligence , an artificial man

At a distance, a secondary expositor, A being of sound, whom one does not approach Through any exaggeration. From hi m, we collect. (Palm 251 } Stevens manages that "aesthetic distance," as his own person in the poem is indeed a "separate author," and as Keats and Eliot have done, he creates the emotions aroused through poetic device.

The relevance of persona i n connection with mimesis has to do with universality. A poet cannot present an exclusivel y egocentric v i ew of the world to his reade r s and contain within that view a universal emotion or event.

We derive pleasure from poetry in v iewing acts that convey 29 universal propositions that cause us to recognize and relate them to our own lives, learning in the process a truth about ourselves and humanity. CHAPTER TWO

NATURE AND REALITY

Of all the distinctions in Aristotle's view of imitation, the objects imitated are the most import~nt, for they are central to Aristotle's concept of nature and reality.

Nature itself is a "creative force with a direction"

(Adams 47) that particularizes the general events and occurrences that constitute life. The poet "imitates" nature by representing the process of li f e in universa l terms. This is what is meant by Aristotle' s statement that "artists imitate men involved in action" (4).

Frye elaborates with the view that

histories are direct verbal imitat i ons of action, and that anything in literature with a s tory in it is a secondary imitation of an action. This means, not that the story is at two removes from reality, but that its actions are repre sentative and typica l rather than specific. For some reason it has not been near l y so well understood that discursive writing is not think ing, but a direct verbal imitation of thought; that any poem with an idea in it is a secondary imitation of thought, and hence deals with representative or typical thought: that is, with forms of thought rather than specific propositions. (161-62)

Thoug ht c a n be seen as an "action" of which writing lS an imitation. Francis Fergusson expands Aristotle's meaning of "action" as "not physical activity, but a move ment of spirit" (4) wh ich i s expressed in poe try.

30 31

Stevens's poetry speaks of this "movement of spirit,"

and knowing that the poem as process is in itself an

action , he calls it "an act of the mind" (Palm 174) of

which

The poem is the cry of its occasion, Part of the res itself and not about it. The poet speaks the poem as it is, Not as it was. (Palm 338)

The poet is a recorder of the here and now , not a his-

torian of the past, because he is concerned with present

experience . The poet is also aware of his function;

that is , to bring a universality to his work so that

It is As i f the central poem became the world,

And the world the central poem , each one the mate Of the other. (Palm 318)

The world/poem is reflected by "her mirror and her look ," an imitation whereby "The essential poem begets t he others" because " The central poem is the poem of the whale" (Palm 318), meaning that poetry represents the whale of life. The poet imitates because " He is the transparence of the place in which I He is and in his poems we find peace" (Palm 187) .

What the poet imitates is nature and reality, the actions of life. Frye states that

Any discussion of poetry has to begin with the field or area that it works in, the field described by Aristotle as nature . Stevens calls it 'reality.' by which he means, not s i mply the external physical world, but 'things as they are , ' the e x istential process that 32

includes ordinary human life on the level of absorption in routine activity. (162)

Aristotle views nature as always in flux, which is in

direct contrast to Plato, especially sicne in Aristotle's

view this flux is both good and natural. Nature is always

trying to complete itself; thus art, which can achieve

completion as nature cannot, is an "improvement on na-

ture" (Adams 47). Nature also represents order and regu-

larity as the seasons and day and night a~e ordered.

Yet order can be subjective as well as object ive. The

mind's processes exhibit a kind of internal order, and

it is this order that Stevens is seeking in his poems .

Change for both Aristotle and Steven s is necessary,

and Stevens speaks of it in "Notes." Change is inherent

in the "ancient cycle" (Palm 208), and the desire for

change"Being virile hears the calendar hymn"

(Pa l m 208); and the idea of the imagination trans forming reality as well as its reverse is apparent in the line

"My house has changed a little in the sun" (Palm 212).

The imag i nation even transforms itself:

We say This changes and that changes. Thus the constant

Violets, doves, girls, objects of inconstant cause In a universe o f inconstancy. This means

Night-blue is an inconstant thing. (Palm 216)

Change 1s not mere repetition, but a constant reformu-

lation; s pring is n·ot just a r e turning from "sleep"; 33 the bees are nat the same bees from previous years:

Why should the bee recapture a last blague, Find a deep echo in a horn and buzz The bottomless trophy, new harnsman after old?

Spring vanishes the scraps of winter, why Should there be a question of returning or Of death in memory's dream? Is spring a sleep?

This warmth is far lavers at last accomplishing Their lave, this beginning, nat resuming, this Booming and booming of the new-came bee. (Palm 217)

And above all "The partaker partakes of that which changes him" (Palm 219), and we create our sense of reality from our individual perceptions.

But far the poet, these individual perceptions became universalized, as Aristotle prescribes, far it is in universalization that general truths are revealed. Far

Stevens, the origin of change lies in "the interdepend- ency; the embra ce of generals from which particulars spring" Ovestan 98) and vice versa:

Twa things of apposite natures seem to depend On one another, as a man depends On a woman, day an night, the imagined

On the real This is the origin of change. Winter and spring, cold capulars, embrace And forth the particulars of rapture came. (Palm 218)

As we perceive haw nature changes, we also perceive haw the mind changes in that "The child that touches takes character from the thing, I The body, it touches" (Pal m 219).

Far Stevens and Aristotle, change is goad; it mimics 34 the process of reality. For Plata, change is chaos.

Aristotle speaks of the unity a poem must possess, but Stevens's idea of unity and order differs. Far Aris- totle, unity involves wholeness, a beginning , middle , and end arranged in a certain time sequence . Far Stevens, unity involves form and theme , which o F i tself involves a certain order so that the parts will necessarily create a form that is whole and complete. When Aristotle talks about nature's order he comes closest to the idea that

Stevens e x presses, because, as Frye e x plains,

This central view of poetry is for Stevens based an the straight Aristotelian princ i pl e that if art is not quite nature , at least it grows naturally out of nature . Art then is nat so much nature methodized as nature realized. (164)

However, in order to "realize" the order inherent in nature , the old ideas must be destroyed and new ideas formulated. This "de creation" is ev i dent in "Aca demic

Discourse at Havana" (Palm 88), where myth must be destroyed s o new myths can take their place. These myths are "ex- amples of orde rs tha t were crea ted by the imagination and all must be decreated so that the mind (imagination) can begin again" (Hines 43). The poet "As part of nature" is "Part of us," so he mu s t in "His infinite repetit i on I

reconcil e us to our s elves" (P a lm 88). An d ult- mately, we must accept the fact that "the sustenance of the wilderness I Does not sustain us in the metropales"

(Pa l m 86). We must learn to adapt to our indiv i dual 35 environments. Oecreation is the principle underlying the statement that "A violent order is disorder; and I

A great disorder is order" (Palm 166). What is new comes out of the dust of the old.

We have seen how the use of language creates order in "Idea of Order at Key West" and "A High-Toned Old

Christian Woman," The poet's "rage to order" is merely a "repetition," an imitation of the order found in nature.

"The Man With the Blue Guitar" exhibits a structural order as well as a rhythmical order. It is organized like chords on a guitar, with musical rhythms and stanzas evenly spaced. The guitarist/poet advocates replacing religion with poetry, as "Poetry // Exceeding music must take the place I Of empty heaven and its hymns" (Palm

135). This situation is necessary because the new order

"is like the reason in a storm; // And yet it brings the storm to bear" (Palm 137). But Stevens does not think the transitions will be easy; he knows the "blue guitar // Is a form, described but difficult" (Palm 137)

Stevens says in "Two or Three Ideas" that "the style of a poem and the poem itself are one" (OP 202). What he means is that the form of the poem "imitates" the theme of the poem and vice versa. Because this is true it is also true that "the style of a poem and the style of men are one" ( OP 209). The poem reflects, repeats, imitates the actions of men. J. Hillis Miller confirms this view 36

in that "poetry is imitation, mimesis, analogy, copy.

The structure of the poem should correspond to

the structure of reality. Things as they are on the

blue guitar must match things as they are in nature"

("Theoretical and Atheoretical" 275).

For Aristotle, nature is a process just as the poem

is a process, and Stevens believes that poetry mimics

nature. Since the world of nature encompasses the world

of reality and imagination, it follows that "In the wor l d

of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature"

(OP 170). "Earthy Anecdote," according to Susan Weston ,

shows "the force of nature as represented by the bucks

and the imagination by the firecat" (24). The firecat

remains as it is, and only exerts its presence on the

bucks, which causes them to form new patterns. Thus,

imagination and nature interact, yet neither is really

changed or disturbed. "To the One of Fictive Music"

demonstrates how much we are a part of nature, our own

environment:

For so retentive of themselves a re men That music is intensest which proclaims The near, the clear, and vaunts the clearest bloom, And of all vigils musing the obscure, That apprehends the most which sees and names , As in your name, an image that is sure , Among the arrant spices of the s un, 0 bough and bush and s cente d vine , in whom We give ourselves our likest issuance. (Palm 83)

In "The Comedian as the Letter C" Crispin inhales " the rancid rosin, burly smells I 0 dampened lumber," and 37 savors "rankness like a sensualist" because sensory experience brings him closer to nature, and "made him see how much I Of what he never saw at all" (Palm 66). The poet continually seeks this connection with nature as in "Anatomy of Monotony":

If from the earth we came, it was an earth that bore us as a part of all the things It breeds and that was lewder than it is. Our nature is her nature. Hence it comes, Since by our nature we grow old, earth grows The same. We paral l el the mother's death. (Palm 9 4 )

Stevens is continually describing this process of nature throughout his poetry because the mind is a l ways "describ - ing itself" and poetry is, after all, an imitation of these processes.

The process most central to Stevens's poetics has to do with the way in which we perceive reality, and since reality i s composed o f a synthesis with the imagination, any structural dichotomy of reality and imaginat i on is impassible. What does the question of rea l ity have to do wi th mimesis? Reality, being a process , must be a process of same things. That thing is the activity of men; it is what is meant by Aristotle's statement that the obj e cts o f imitation a re "things that were i n the past , or are now , or that people say and think to be or those things that aught to be" (46). But Stevens i s nat sa much conce rned with what wa s or what aught to be as he i s wi th wh a t is, demons trate d by his e choing Aristotle 38

in tha-c "Reality is things as they are" (NA 25); and his guitarist in "The Man With the Blue Guitar" clarifies the point that "things as they are" are as they are played

"upon the blue guitar" (Palm 133). "Things as they are" are changed by conception through the powers of the imagination.

Throughout Stevens's poetry and theory the poetic quest is one of examination. He explores the possibili- ties inherent in the mind's processes, imitations of what man perceives and then through the imagination modi- fies into a personal conception of reality.

Aristotle located reality in "the process by which a form manifests itself through the concrete and by which the conc~ete takes on meaning working in accordance with ordered principles" (Adams 47). Those principles involve the sensory data with which the world supplies us- - our experience of the world. From this information we are able to relate to and make assumptions about our world, such as the idea that art is an imitation of nature.

Nature, of course, i s reality. But wh at we see is tempered, changed by perception, and the imagination is what acts upon perception. Elizabeth Jennings explains that

Stevens is a poet who finds a vision by asking questions. The mind inquires and the imagination answers. This dialectic concerns itself with discovering order and withstanding chaos. The successful poem is, for him, reality, con taining as it does only what is essential, only wh at suffices and explains. ( 21 0) 39

What would "suffice and explain" is the perfect synthesis between reality and imagination because "it is not only that the imagination adheres to reality, but also that reality adheres to the imagination and that the inter- dependence is essential" (NA 33). Aristotle's process of reality is, for Stevens, the process whereby the synthesis is completed. We live in the world and we also

"live in the mind" (NA 40). Stevens knows that perception is altered by conception, and that "The water of the lake was full of artificial things" (Palm 223), things that our imagination creates; yet the creation is still the will of nature because the artificialities are fashioned from objects in nature:

Like a page of music, like an upper air, Like a momentary color, in which swans Were seraphs, were saints, were changing essences.

The west wind was the music, the motion, the force To which the sw a ns curveted, a will to change, A will to make iris frettings on the blank. (Palm 224)

This ability to fashion new images from existing objects enables a "freshness of transformation" which is "The freshness of a world" (Palm 224}.

Stevens is forever grappling with the question of true reality, objective reality. His inevitable conclu- sian is that there is no s eparate "external reality"; as Crispin discovers, reality is "an up and down between two elements, I A fluctuating between sun and moon" (Pa l m

65). The sun in Stevens represents reality, and the 40 moon, imagination. As with "The Comedian as the Letter

C," other poems often present a world as it might be without the necessary synthesis . In "Esthetique du Mal" the subject is a poet for whom "The moon rose up as if it had escaped" and evaded his mind" (Palm 253). As a result, the poet "never sees I How that which rejects it saves it in the end" (Palm 253) the "it" referring to imaginative "hallucination."

However , it 1s this imaginative hallucinating that actua 11 y creates rea 1 i ty because, as Mi 11 er says, "if the natural activity of the mind is to make unreal representations , these are stil l representations of the material world" (Poets of Reality 222). Stevens says , "The clouds preceded us I There was a muddy centre before we breathed"

(Palm 210), which indicates that nature existed before men and ideas. Again in "Esthetique du Mal" Stevens expresses this bond be-cween worlds: "The greatest poverty is not to live I In a physica l world" (Palm 262) because to do so would mean that

One might have thought of sight, but who could think Of what he sees, for all the ill it sees? Speech found the ear, for all the evil sound, But the dark italics it could not propound. (Palm 263)

Without imagination ("hallucination") we could not "see" good or bad , we could not relate to our "physical world."

As Stevens says, "All of our ideas come from the natural 41 world: trees = umbrellas" (OP 163)

The natural world is thus our frame of reference.

It is how we compare our sensory evaluations to the objects around us. Since it is a problem of "mind confronting mattter this bifurcation of reality is the universal human condition" (Miller, Poets of Reality 222). Concerned with the "human condition," Stevens and Aristotle both advocate poetry as a means of gaining knowledge and truth, thus helping man to "live their lives." The way to do this, according to Stevens, is to "accomplish a poetry that satisfies both the reason and the imag i nation"

(NA 42). The poet must ma k e h is "imagination theirs

[the world's] and he fulfills himself only as he sees his imagination become the light in the minds of others" ( NA 29). In other words , the poet must create a universality of experience out of his own particularized version of that experience. For Aristotle , universal propositions join the world of "singulars" and make them intelligible, becaus e, as Hard i son explains , "being properly equ i pped with universal propositions, I am able to 'under stand' new particulars by relating them to appropriate universals" (Aristotle 290). What this power accomplishes is the a b ility to r elate to something , perh aps never seen or felt, because there is something in the description that 1s familiar, such as a natural object , emotion, or idea. Stevens ma kes such propositions as in "Someone 42

Puts a Pineapple Together": "This is everybody's world. I

Here the total artifice reveals itself II As the total

reality" (Palm 299). It is artifice because it is a

created resemblance, one that we can identify: "the odor

of this fruit is the odor of this core of earth"

(Palm 299). This connection is so because

It is that which is distilled In the prolific ellipses that we know,

In the planes that tilt hard revelations on The eye. (Palm 299)

The "ellipses" are the blank spaces in perception that

the imagination seeks to fill. In "The Comedian as the

Letter C" Crispin makes a proposition about the world:

"man 1s the intelligence of his soil" (Palm 58), which

suggests that man has supremacy over his environment.

Crispin explores this idea, but soon discards it in favor

of another proposition : "his soil is man's intelligence"

(Palm 66), which suggests that man is dependent on his

environment. These propositions are the means by which

man can test his relation to the world, as well as pro-

vide a vehicle in his search for truth. The Adagia can be seen as a collection of propositions in search of these truths, as well as a point of reference for the synthesis between imagination and reality. As Stevens says,

"Life is a composite of the propositions about it" (OP 171).

Consider these propositions from Adagia: "Poetry

is a purging of the world's poverty and change and evil 43 and death. It is a present perfecting, a satisfaction in the irremediable poverty of life" (OP 167); and "The transition from make believe for one's self to make be lieve for others is the beginning, or the end, of poetry in the individual" (..Q!: 169). Coupled with Stevens's statement about making the poet's imagination one with the world, these propositions can be compared to what

Aristotle meant by catharsis: a good imitation "should provide pleasure from pity and fear" (Aristotle 23).

The kind of pleasure Aristotle refers to can be thought of as the pleasure all men find in imitation of any sort: recognition of the human condition. It would be then through this recognition that catharsis is achieved.

If we translate catharsis as "purgation," we are stressing its cleansing function. What an imitation would cleanse, then, lS an eliciting of emotion. This function is important, according to Aristotle, because "tragedy is not an imitation of men per ~' but of human action and life and happiness and misery" (12).

For Stevens, Aristotle's idea of tragic "magnitude" might equal his own "poetry of thought" which results in "the supreme poetry" (OP 187). Since the "supreme" poetry must be one in which imagination and reality com bine, and the poet's role is to present this combination to his audience, the result must be a catharsis of emotion.

The reader must feel as the poet feels. In "The Emperor 44

of Ice Cream" we are given juxtaposing images; one of

hedonism: "Call the roller of big cigars," the other

of death: "If her horny feet protrude, they come I To

show how cold she is, and dumb" (Palm 79-80). These

images are meant to evoke emotion, a realization of mor

tality designed to make the poet's experience our experi-

ence. Stevens has here fulfilled Aristotle's injunction

to involve the reader in this experience of life's ironies;

life and death intermingle and we are all startled wit-

nesses. Stevens's images jolt us into a realization we

might not otherwise have had. "Domination of Black" deals

with the same subject by creating a mood: A "night by

the fire" is likened to "The colors of the bushes I And

of the fallen leaves," which would normally be peaceful,

but it is disrupted by the "color of the heavy hemlocks"

and "the cry of the peacocks" ( Pa~ 14). The peacock's

"cry against the twilight" (Palm 15) evokes visions of

mortality. Harol.d Bloom states that the poet is "moving

from the mimesis of the fallen leaves to the expressive cry

of the peacocks, a cry to which the cry of his own poem

1s joined" (404) Again, we are jolted into an Aristo- telian involvement, not being allowed the peace of a warm room, but forced to face the emotion the poet 1s experiencing: the truth of life's mortality. In doing so, we are brought face to face with our own mortality,

and in the recognition, the commonality of experience, 45 we gain a Fellowship with the poem.

By relating his own experience, the poet universalizes

(through metaphor), the universal creating an emotion, mood, or Feeling in his reader.

But let the poet on his balcony Speak and the sleepers in their sleep shall move, Waken, and watch the moonlight on their Floors. This may be benediction, sepulcher, And epitaph. It may, however, be An incantation that the moon deFines By mere example opulently clear. (Palm 88-89)

The poet will "waken" his audience who will then make his imagination theirs, which may be their salvation, downFall or eulogy, or j ust a wa y oF cla riFying and de-

Fining reality. This clariFication will serve the ultimate purpose oF poetry: "To make liFe complete in itselF"

( OP 162) • CONCLUSION

Stevens's Aristotelian connections can be clearly seen in his attitudes toward the process of nature, reality, imagination, and poetry. Stevens agrees with Aristotle on the Function of poetry , its pleasurable and cognitive role. "Poetry is the gaiety (joy) of language" (OP 174) whose purpose is "to contribute man's happiness" (OP

168). It is through poetry that sense is made of the world in which we l i ve.

Stevens also agrees with Aristotle on the princip l es of language, th a t 1s the natural med i um for poetry with its inherent rhythms and harmonies. "In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythm s with all your capacity to love anything a t all" (OP 161)

Both exalt the use of metaphor, analogy , poetic diction and the "pure sound" of poetry. there are certain parallels to Aristotle found in Stevens's attitude toward subjectivity and persona, both concluding that universality is an end in itself and that "Poetry is not personal" (OP 159)

Nature for both Stevens and Aristotle is a process , as is poetry , and this process is a "final g ood" (Pal m

232) to be enjoyed for the pleasure k nowledge brings.

Men enjoy viewing representation , says Aristotle, and

Stevens echoes this idea in "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction":

46 47

"And we enjoy like men, the way a leaf I Above the table

spins its constant spin, I So that we look at it with

pleasure" (Palm 232). Nature provides us with a natura l

landscape from which we draw comparisons about other

aspects of life: "It is a wheel, the rays I Around the

sun. The wheel survives the myths" (Palm 168), which

is to say that the representat i on is y et a representation

of reality, and reality outlives the fictions we create.

The interior landscape becomes one with the e x terior

by means of metaphor , and Stevens leads us to a n ew k no w-

ledge, a way of viewing the disparities of the world

and learning to live with them , changing as they change ,

learning to adapt and grow and continue to co-exi st.

Metaphor "must be of the nature of its creator. I It

is the nature of its creator increased , I Heightened"

(Palm 398), and the creator is ourselves , mi micki n g what

is before us , yet cha nged , individua li z ed in the mind 's

e ye, creating " a seeing and uns e e ing in the eye " (Pa l m

212)

The poet a s i mitator strives for order , an order

tha t i s paralleled i n the n a tural wor l d; and i n s o d o ing, the poet c a lms the chao s l i fe s e e ms t o contain. But only by di s covery of th i s n a tura l orde r do we b e n e fit from it , beca use

to i mpose i s not To discover . To discover an ord er as o f A s eason , to d i scover summer a nd know it ,

To discover winter and know it wel l, to f ind , 48

Not to impose, not to have reasoned at all, Out of nothing to have come on major weather,

It is possible, possible, possible . (Palm 230)

Only by discovery is it possible to come to an understanding of reality , the "major weather"; then and only then can we "find the real I The fiction of an absolute" (Palm 230) that is poetry.

Stevens believes that "Art, broadly, 1s the form of life or the sound or color of life. Considered as form (in the abstract) it is often indistinguishable from life itself" (OP 158) because art is imitative of life, as well as a " revelation of nature" (OP 154).

Stevens's quest for a synthesis of reality and imaginat i on stems from his belief that "The reason is a part of nature" just as "The imagination is one of the forces of nature "

(OP 170) And both, being a part of nature , necessarily must repre sent nature . It is in th i s representat i on, this imitation of nature's processes, this Aristote l ian view of the world that the "Sleight-of-Hand Man," the innocent man unfettered by preconception, "Has any chance to ma te his life with life" (Palm 158) and merge with the nature so inherently his own. WORKS CITED

Primary Sources

Ar i stat 1 e. Poetics. Trans. Leon Go 1 den, with commentary by 0. B. Hardison, Jr. Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1981.

OP Stevens, Wallace. Opus Posthumous. Ed. Samuel French Morse. 1957; rpt. New York: Vintage Books, 1982.

NA The Necessary Angel. New York: Vintage Books, 1951.

Palm The Palm at the End of the Mind. Ed. Holly Stevens. 1967; rpt. New York: Vintage Books, 1972.

Secondary Sources

Adams, Hazard, ed. Critical Theory Since Plato. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971.

Bloom, Harold. Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970.

Doggett , Frank. Stevens' Poetry of Thougt-:t. Ba 1 t i more: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966.

Donoghue, Denis. "Nuances of a Theme by Stevens." In The Act of the Mind. Eds. Roy Harvey Pearce and J. Hillis Miller. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1965. 229-42.

Fergusson, Francis. Introduction. Aristotle's Poetics. trans. S. H. Butcher. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961.

Frye, Northrup. "The Realistic Oriole: A Study of Wallace Stevens." In Wallace Stevens: A Collection of Criti cal Essays. Ed. Marie Borroff. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1963.

Heringman, Bernard. "The Use of Poetry." In The Act of the Mind. Eds. Roy Harvey Pearce and J. Hillis Miller. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, l965. 1-12.

Hines, Thomas. The Later Poetry of Wallace Stevens. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press , 1976. 49 50

Holman, C. Hugh. A Handbook to Literature. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1981 .

Jennings, Elizabeth. Every Changing Shape. Philadelphia: Dufour Editions, 1962.

Juhasz, Suzanne. Metaphor and the Poetry of Willia~ Pound, and Stevens. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1974.

Kessler, Edward. Images of Wallace Stevens. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1972.

Levin, Samuel. "Aristotle's Theory of Metaphor." Philoso phy and Rhetoric 15 (1982): 24-46.

Miller, J. Hillis. "Atheoretical and Theoretical in Stevens." In Wallace Stevens: A Celebration. Eds. Frank Doggett and Robert Butte!. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. 274-85.

"Wallace Stevens." In Poets of Reality. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1966. 215-84.

Perlis, Alan. Wallace Stevens: A World of Transforming Shapes. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1976.

Plato. Republic. In Critical Theory Since Plato. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Ed. Hazard Adams. New York: Har court Brace Jovanovich, 1971.

Powell, Grosvenor E. "Wa 11 ace Stevens' Approaches to the Absolute: From Crispin's Quest to Central Poetry." Southern Review 15.4 (Oct 1979): 792-8 10.

Riddel, Joseph N. The Clairvoyant Eye. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965.

Sukenick, Ronald. Wallace Stevens: Musing the Obscure. New York: New York University Press, 1967.

Willard, Abbie. Wallace Stevens: The Poet and His Critics. Chicago: American Library Association, 1978.