Synopses & Reviews
Theodore Sampson begins his compelling study by arguing that Wallace Stevens' (1859-1955) poetry defies interpretation, that his long poems, particularly, remain too open-ended for rational paraphrase. Most critics of Stevens, faced with his complexities, have none the less attempted to make critical discourse (if not sense) out of them. This has led, in Sampson's view, to critical excesses and undue deformation of language.
Drawing its essential insights from the perspectivist thought of Emerson, Nietzsche, William James and Paul Valery, the book examines Stevens' deeply fragmented sense of self and world as projected in Harmonium, and then proceeds to investigate the poet's stance as an Emersonian pragmatist or "connoisseur of chaos", who must constantly "throw away the lights" and write his poems "in the dark"; a valuation that stresses the dominant role of "the irrational element" in Stevens' verse.
Review
"Written with grace and lucidity, thoroughly seeped in the work of preceding critics, Sampson's challenging study offers a convincing rationale for the most irrational aspects of Stevens' work." Wallace Stevens Journal
Synopsis
Argues that Wallace Stevens' poetry defies interpretation, that his long poems, particularly, remain too open-ended for rational paraphrase.
About the Author
Theodore Sampson is Professor of American literature at the University of Athens. His other publications include an anthology of contemporary Canadian poetry on Greece, a monograph on Wallace Stevens, and several volumes of modern Greek fiction translated into English.