The Snow Man By Wallace Stevens - 1133 Words

In â€Å"The Snow Man† by modernist poet Wallace Stevens, the idea is brought up that one must have a certain mind to see things a certain way; in his poem, Stevens explores the idea of perception, challenging the realities commonly seen, with one common scene often interpreted. The poem describes a scene in the midst of winter’s gloom, then shifts into the perception of this scene, saying how in reality there is no gloom. Stevens mentions how â€Å"one must have a mind of winter†(line 1) to refuse internal psychological interpretations on the outside world. But at the same time, he is leaning to the other side, saying how difficult something like that is. In an earlier line, Stevens says â€Å"to regard†(line 2), but he laters shifts to â€Å"behold.†(line 5) The word behold implies awe, and the words that follow it, â€Å"the junipers shagged with ice/ the spruces rough in the distant glitter/ of the January sun;†(lines 5-7) seem to evoke a sense of melancholy. He follows that set up with a sort of obvious-fact tone in his next line by saying â€Å"and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind.† (lines 7-8) Stevens is stating that one must have a mind of winter, or a mind that is like winter, in order to look at all the desolation, and not think of precisely that. But he uses language that sets up a very lonely mood, which is the reality of what he is trying to say. As something is seen and perceived, minds interpret it accordingly to what they feel; vise versa, something commonly associatedShow MoreRelatedThe Snow Man by Wallace Stevens1518 Words   |  7 PagesAfterlife: the complete emptiness Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) wrote most of his poems during the world wars period, which took the lives of millions of people. As a result, Wallace Stevens started to question the importance of religion in the modern era, and felt that you should enjoy your life in the present and not waste time living for an afterlife. In his poem â€Å"The Snow Man†, Stevens describes a harsh winter environment creating a unique dramatic situation through an effective imagery. HeRead MoreInterpretation and Analysis of Wallace Stevens The Snow Man1466 Words   |  6 PagesThe Snow Man by Wallace Stevens is a poem which creates a unique dramatic situation through an effective imagery, and which compels the reader to employ another way of thinking in order to both understand the poem and realize its very theme. The first thing that is noticeable about the poem is that it is actually just one long, complex sentence. There is no rhyme, and there is no particular meter. Each foot varies: the poem becomes a combination of iambs (the frost, and not, the sound, thatRead MoreA Force of Nature: Imagination in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery1602 Words   |  7 Pagesfeeling what seems to him to be poetry at that time† (The necessary vii). What Stevens is suggesting here is that a poet must find a particular voice among other voices –other poets– and that his voice will be significant only if it intends to be a contribution to the theory of poetry, in the sense that they â€Å"are disclosures of poetry, not disclosures of definitions of poetry† (Ibid). Precisely, the poetry of Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery are disclosures of poetry regarding imagination, for they dealRead MoreAnalysis of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens1525 Word s   |  7 Pages Wallace Stevens is not an easy poet to understand. His work is purposely twisted and tangled so one is forced to thing-whether they want to or not. Stevens’ poetry ranges from real life situations to situations which are simply a depiction of his imagination. One thing can be concluded though, Stevens does not allow his work to have a single meaning. Why should he? This is the upmost quality that makes his stand out from his competitors in the poetic industry. An interesting theme thoughRead MoreDistancing And Undistancing : The Ideas Of Man1473 Words   |  6 PagesDistancing and Undistancing: The Ideas of Man and the Idea of God in Wallace Stevens The practice of poetry is the practice of understanding the abstract qualities of reality. Wallace Stevens, one of most appreciated poets of the twentieth century, uses the medium in an effort to discover a sense of order in the disorder of daily life. He focuses on the distinction between the visible and the abstract invisible, and, as can be seen in his poems â€Å"The Idea of Order at Key West† and â€Å"An OrdinaryRead MoreThirteen Ways of Self-Questioning1358 Words   |  6 PagesThirteen Ways of Self-Questioning The poem â€Å"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird† is written by Wallace Stevens. It contains thirteen sections; each section provides us a picture that is centered by the element of blackbird. Blackbird in the poem signifies people’s consciousness. So this poem wants to tell us that every person has a perspective to look at the world. It questions our process of thought to understand the world, and reminds us realize the problem of it. In â€Å"The Language of Paradox†Read More Modernist Literature Essay2369 Words   |  10 Pagesmusic†Ã¢â‚¬â€danced through the music scene. Painters such as Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky stroked over the paintings of impressionist, representationalist artists, such as Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas. Poets like T.S. Eliot, e.e. cummings, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams broke the rules of conventional poetry. Lastly, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald replaced the plot-driven novels of the nineteenth century with their works: The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby. NewRead MoreRichard Wilbur s Boy At The Window834 Words   |  4 Pages Richard is a poet who was in the U.S. army in World War II. According to the Poetry Foundation, the war influenced his poetry. He was born in 1912 in New York City and won the Pulitzer Prize two times and won many other awards, such as the Wallace Stevens award. One poem Richard Wilbur wrote was â€Å"Boy at the Window†. This poem is about a boy looking out a window at a snowman, but the young boy does not quite understand why the snowman has to suffer out in the cold. The theme of the poem is as oneRead MoreExplication of Wallace Stevens Snowman1399 Words   |  6 Pages Wallace Stevens explores the perception of a January winter scene in his poem â€Å"The Snow Man.† The poem occurs over the space of five unrhymed stanzas, three lines each, and is contained to a single, deceptively simple sentence. Within this sentence, semicolons split up the viewer’s actions as the speaker expands on t he necessities of the scenery. Rather than that which is perceived, it is the act of perception on which the poem focuses, and passive verbs predominantly characterize this central actionRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book Anthem By Ayn Rand For Summer Reading My Freshman Year1360 Words   |  6 Pagesdestination is the Capitol. 3. A stated reason to go there: Katniss wishes to bring down the government that has been mistreating the people of Panem. 4. Challenges and trials: Katniss faces many challenges along the way, most of them involving President Snow wanting her dead in some way and the government trying to kill her to stop the rebellion. 5. The real reason to go: In this trilogy in particular, the real reason to go is very similar to the stated reason. The real reason Katniss wants to go to the