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Footnote: On Wallace Stevens' Perspectives

The intimate truth
of a poem may be disclosed
in new perspectives:
first to third person, or a
change of pronoun; accomplished.

Kaykuchuu

Author's Notes/Comments: 

This strategy of Stevens' poetry is asserted in theory by Helen Vendler, in her magnificent study of some of his poems, "Words Chosen Out Of Desire." It remains a theory, because it is not confirmed by any comment of Stevens', but, as a theory, it explains much that has confused other commentators, and I think it reveals one of the foremost aspects of Stevens' poems---the unsatisfied desire that inspires a good many of them.

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©5 October 2011 - 1:32am — S74rw4rd