Wallace Stevens: His Life and Work
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- This video lecture presents an introduction to the life and work of Wallace Stevens, one of America's greatest and oddest poets-- in equal parts philosopher, visionary, and comedian. A high Modernist poet who spent his days working as an insurance lawyer, Stevens was a private man obsessed with understanding the nature of reality. This video lecture is written and narrated by poet Dana Gioia.
Wallace Stevens, the businessman-poet, is one of century's most interesting poets. Wallace Stevens' first book of poetry, "Harmonium" is one of the two best debut collection sin American (you can guess the other). For readers new to Wallace Stevens, start the same way Stevens did-- with "Harmonium".
0:00 - Introduction
2:40 - Stevens attitude on fame, his work, & split life
4:45 - Personal Life
6:20 - Early Life & Harvard
8:00 - Marriage to Elsie Kachel
11:00 - Stevens in New York and failed law caeer
11:45 - Insurance at Hartford Accident and Indemnity
14:36 - Balancing two careers, the businessman poet
16:10 - Harmonium, Steven’s first book
20:29 - Stevens’ personal poetics
23:10 - “The Emperor of Ice Cream” (poem close reading)
27:30 - Stevens’ mature style
27:50 - “Sunday Morning”
29:01 - Stevens’ expansion of imagism into lyricism
30:04 - “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” (poem close reading)
31:45 - The Poet’s Poet
32:44 - Stevens’ long, complicated poems
35:16 - Stevens gets philosophical
37:01 - Deathbed conversion to Catholicism
39:20 - “Peter Quince at the Clavier” (poem close reading)
Twitter: @danagioiapoet
Website: danagioia.com
This is THE overview of Stevens I’d been searching for without knowing. Thanks for such a great video! 🙏
Well said. Ditto.
I must wear my yellow and blue boxer shorts tonight, and return to the world of Stevens. Thank you for this thoughtful reminder to make my return journey.
Fascinating analysis of Stevens' work and life.
I found a reasonably priced early hardcover copy of "Harmonium." Thanks for bringing that first book to my attention, though I have for years enjoyed and fully appreciated Wallace Stevens' poetry.
thank you. Poetry is something that I KNOW is spiritual and enfleshed at the same time. I'm seeking to understand it's mystery. Your video about Wallace Stevens, which I found by chance, is timely.. Thank you again.
Thank you.
A work of love. Goia conveys with such passion his love for this poet. Made me want to reread Stevens again.
I want to add that I have watched this twice. It is the best presentation on Stevens that I have ever seen. Such a fascinating poet. I hope you will do more of these.
Thank you. I find myself watching really good videos more than once. I wish I could go back in real life and attend talks and lectures in my past again.
@@danagioia6943 Years ago, when I lived near Princeton, I used to attend some of the poetry readings offered by the University. I recall James Merrill reading in a bright blue suit and crisp bow tie. He seemed to be Stevens-like in his poems. These days, I enjoy reading Kay Ryan, who I know you admire. I also like A.E. Stallings. I like poets who are rigorous and measured in their craft. Too often with poets today it is quantity over quality.
Outstanding summary of someone difficult to summarize.
What an incredible work of research and an excellent presentation! Thank you!
I much appreciate your commentary on Wallace Stevens.
Thank you. I put great effort into writing these videos and their scripts.
This is excellent. Thank you.
Beautifully rendered. Thank you for this resource.
I finally had time to sit and watch this in its entirety. I learned so much -- about both the poetry AND the man. What a unique being he was! Thank you for yet another informative and entertaining video. 👏
Excellent & timely
This was wonderful. Many thanks.
This is an outstanding presentation to better understand a wonderful poet. Thank you.
Thank you for this excellent presentation. Love his Snowman poem!
Thank you for sharing this engaging lecture. Stevens work is rewarding to grapple with.
This was really an outstanding lecture.
An enjoyable and insightful presentation, thank you. I've always loved Stevens' poetry, and I find the man himself strangely endearing.
"A constant sacrament of praise"! A word that rhymes wonderfully with "plays." Thanks for the good reading of this excellent poet, who crosses the many boundaries you mention, the short and long, the recherché and the common, the comic and the tragic, the philosophic and... the philosophical and true. And reality! I love how you hint at his inspiration as a young person, not rich but encountering Santayana at Harvard nonetheless. Hinting at those indescribable changes that occur among the the young ( and not only?)...!
Yes! I was hoping you would take on Stevens. Bravo!
Thank you this presentation and thank you for all of the beautiful poetry that you have written!
Thanks to your lectures I have discovered there is a name for my malady: New Formalism. I've written to my own drumbeat for several years but was constrained by a limited frame of reference, mainly poets covered in basic literature classes. In recent years I have begun exploring other poets, not obscure to others but unknown to me. It is in part through lectures, such as those you provide, that I broaden my exposure. It's an ever-widening gyre.
You might find Robert McPhillips's excellent book, "The New Formalism: A Critical Introduction," both interesting and useful. You can pick up a copy inexpensively on the internet or order a copy of the expanded edition from the publisher, Textos.
Brilliant, insightful and totally and refreshingly comprehensible for what is otherwise a densely opaque subject. A great many thanks!
Thank you for this remarkable video on the life and work of Wallace Stevens.
Thank you for the video about my favourite poet
Early this morning, by happenstance, I found your channel and watched your video essays on Wallace Stevens and Edwin Arlington Robinson. I enjoyed them both. Having had a lifelong interest in literature and poetry, I knew something about both poets already, and now I know more. I was especially surprised to learn that Stevens converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. I don't know what to think about that.
Thanks. I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos.
And I think poets having their own TH-cam channels is a great idea!
Very impressive analysis. A professor, I presume. Would surely have loved to have had such a teacher in class.
Thank you! I take these videos as seriously as published essays.
Thank you.
This is a great educational video. I sadly never heard of Wallace Stevens that I remember growing up in Connecticut but I've driven by his house probably a million times going into Harford.
I'm delighted to have introduced to your greatest local poet.
Much better discussion than my professor s
Great presentation. Hope to see more of your poetry talks.
Very thorough and enlightening. Just discovered Wallace and his work. Thank you kindly for your efforts.
Thank you. You have a lot to look forward to reading Stevens.
Fantastic. I always feel edified after I’ve encountered either Ted or Dana Gioia.
Awesome!
Thank you for your inspiring and informative lecture!
This is wonderful - moving and thoughtful. Great insight.
This way of thinking musically and abstractly especially about existence and death reminds one of Emily Dickinson.
Here is a rough table of contents
0:00 - Introduction
2:40 - Stevens attitude towards fame, his work, & privacy
4:45 - Personal Life
6:20 - Early Life & Harvard
8:00 - Marriage to Elsie Kachel
11:00 - Stevens in New York and failed law caeer
11:45 - Insurance at Hartford Accident and Indemnity
14:36 - Balancing two careers, the businessman poet
16:10 - Harmonium, Steven’s first book
20:29 - Stevens’ personal poetics
23:10 - “The Emperor of Ice Cream” (poem close reading)
27:30 - Stevens’ mature style
27:50 - “Sunday Morning”
29:01 - Stevens’ expansion of imagism into lyricism
30:04 - “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” (poem close reading)
31:45 - The Poet’s Poet
32:44 - Stevens’ long, complicated poems
35:16 - Stevens gets philosophical
37:01 - Deathbed conversion to Catholicism
39:20 - “Peter Quince at the Clavier” (poem close reading)
THE MODERN MEANING IS MAN IS THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS.
Bravo! Watching from Brazil.
I am one of those people you described in an earlier video, one who has been intimidated by poetry. Thank you so much for your lectures as they are helping me understand and appreciate poetry in ways I never could have imagined!
I'm happy that the video helped you enter poetry. Part of poetry's strength is its relationship to an audience. If the audience shrinks or becomes too specialized, poetry is diminished. Of course, it still exists, but its conversation with cultural grows dimmer.
It’s a gorgeous riddle……this poem. The roller of big cigars is Emily Dickinson. There are several delightful clues.
Excellent
Great poet
thank you very much sir
Noticed this, written by Helen Vendler for the NY Times in 2009:
"Holly [his daughter] scoffed at the tale of Stevens’s reputed baptism and 'conversion' related many years later by the hospital chaplain; in her daily attendance, she saw no sign of it and heard nothing of it. (There is no written record of that 'baptism,' although all Roman Catholic priests are required to record the baptisms they perform.)"
Vendler rejected the conversion story, but there is independent testimony, which is widely available. There is even a letter from the priest who baptized Stevens who stated that the local bishop told him not to document the baptism (and others) because he was worried that Protestants would stop coming to the hospital if they feared their relatives might convert to Catholicism. This letter contains information about Stevens that would not have been public at the time. I would direct you to look at Peter Brazeau's oral biography of Stevens and Paul Mariani's biography as well as the scholarship of Janet McCann. Of course, there is an element of uncertaintly, but Vendler is not infallible on this issue.
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I somewhat disagree with the claim at ~37:37 that Stevens converted to Catholicism because he was ultimately unsatisfied with human fictions; it can be argued that religion is the supreme human fiction, beyond poetry and philosophy, so he possibly felt that religious human fictions were superior. For example, in "Sunday Morning" he states the tomb in Palestine is where Jesus lay. Stevens understood that there was a supreme fiction going on and that one had to make the Kierkegaardian "leap of faith", as you said. The leap of faith is not to be read as doubting some elements of Christianity, and still making the "leap" because it's plausible it happened (I doubt Jesus really resurrected, but I suppose it's possible, so I will make a leap of faith) -- but rather knowing that it patently did not happen, and that one is choosing to believe in a supreme fiction rather than the mundane reality. They believe despite knowing that it is a fiction (I know Jesus never actually resurrected, but I still choose to believe as an ideology).
So perhaps a Stevensian theme is how imagination is a means to an end, but for Stevens the imagination is not the end in itself, but the thing which allows one to believe in the unbelievable through sheer power of (irrational) intellect; hence "One lives inside the mind". The fictions we choose to believe are the world we live in, "Be careful how you interpret the world; it *is* like that." as said Erich Heller. So by choosing to convert to Catholicism, Stevens was identifying himself with the fiction he chose/wished/desired/preferred to be the real one -- despite knowing it was not. Fictions live in the mind, therefore one lives inside the mind, but it is not for the mind's sake, per se, but what it contains or allows one to do -- the Jar which holds dominion over the wilderness in Tennessee, as it were, the vessel which allows one to impose superficial order over chaos to make reality coherent.
Like how a poet's choice of meter or form dictates the poem itself; the fiction one chooses is the "screen" or "filter" which makes order out of chaotic data which is true reality, in the same way our eyes "filter" out 99.99% of electromagnetic waves allowing us to perceive visible light (arguably this means we are not privy to ~100% of visual reality, therefore, mathematically speaking, everyone is blind). That said, as an atheist, I still simply do not think such a leap is necessary or valuable; but for someone such as Stevens or T.S. Eliot, clearly theology still held enormous weight in modernity post-Death of God.
The motivations and rationale of Stevens' deathbed conversion are unknowable. I offered one hypothesis. You have another. I wonder if it was even an intellectual decision. Perhaps it was an emotional and intuitive action.
How about a similar one on CONRAD AIKEN or KEN PATCHEN (the prebeat jazzer ) ?? Or Thomas Hardy or Saint John Perse ( = "arse" in finn7sh ..a nobelist.). Frank O Hara needs a reassessment likewise. Neruda is a timeless one, but is generally known, as is FGL. What about the merits of JDM of the Doors ? He wrote incredible lines. I d like to have the upstairs downstairs line smothered & diluted betw the high culture and the "low" - esp inasmuch as we are all just visitors on this strange land, no matter if we work 4 a Prudential or a rock group. Ed Sanders, Delmore Schwartz, also need highly to be analyzed. Suggest put on your turntable AN AMERICAN PRAYER (1978) lp and take in its long title poem; The United Snakes of Amaruca needs a serious new breeze into its stuffy, divided soul or self ...or what s left of it. It is almost 2 late of an hour. Unless, pretty soon it won t be no more & and that won t be pretty, just petty ..
Definitively appreciate your style of explaining W.S. There is a selection translated to our 5mill language by a local lit celeb, lawyer and a famous poet himself, Jukka Kemppinen from mid 90s 🇫🇮
Many poets deserve deeper consideration by thoughtful critics. I like video essays as a way to do that.
@@danagioia6943 "IF you generalize 2 Much - you spritualize even double that amount". Can t remember who said that. But it stays valid, it seems .. My 4 line comm yesterday generated a 6 answer chain on a brief Ken Patchen vid on another ch. The presenter there complained before mine, it is so damn difficult to reach even a superficial conversation on Yt on any poetic matter, ntm a 4gotten pacifist semi-red as K.P. So, I m a bit disappointed at Your minimalist reply. HOW ABOUT AN ESSAY ON PAUL VALERY ?
PS. Suggest dig up the Jukka Kemppinen translation in finnish on W.S. (nice sleeve). He is as recognized here as Anselm Hollo is stateside, another lit legend finn (w fins ..always wins)... 🇫🇮
Leaving only $100K at death means he spent A LOT of money in his lifetime.
What on, I wonder?
@@TomorrowWeLiveIt is my understanding that he was wont to vacation in the Florida Keys. Otherwise, I'm not sure how well traveled he was. But even vacation trips within the United States involved expense and the luxury of leisure.
What a boring guy!
This is a key biographical insight.
An absolutely brilliant poet nevertheless!
He enjoyed a richer inner life than most external circumstances could ever measure.