Earthy Anecdote

"Earthy Anecdote" is the first poem in Wallace Stevens' first book of poetry Harmonium (1923). The passage of a group of "bucks" is impeded by a "firecat".

Interpretation

According to Martha Strom's interpretation of this poem, "Stevens locates the bucks in Oklahoma, which firmly situates the poem in the 'local' school of writing, but he imbues the localist donnée—a particular landscape, some bucks, and a cat in Oklahoma—with the motion of his imagination, and the flat 'local' scene acquires texture and life". When Stevens was a student at Harvard he was interested in the local-color-movement in American writing, but that interest grew into a lifelong philosophical study of imagination and reality and how their intersection could lead to poetry. Those terms are ones that apply more usefully to "Earthy Anecdote" than "local color".

gollark: I can probably find this eventually, hmm.

gollark: No, the censorship thing has just come up *now* because we've been good about this.

gollark: https://discord.com/channels/346530916832903169/348702212110680064/818112080371777577

gollark: Moderators are basically just meant to enforce basic civility standards and such.

gollark: No it isn't.

References

Strom, Martha. "Wallace Stevens' Revisions of Crispin's Journal: A Reaction Against the 'Local'". Reprinted in Axelrod and Deese.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.