A Selected Bibliography
Harmonium (1923)
Ideas of Order (1935)
Owl's Clover (1936)
The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)
Parts of the World (1942)
Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction (1942)
Esthétique du Mal (1945)
Three Academic Pieces (1947)
Transport to Summer (1947)
Primitive Like an Orb (1948)
Auroras of Autumn (1950)
The Necessary Angel (1951)
Collected Poems (1954)
Opus Posthumous (1957)
The Palm at the End of the Mind (1967)
Wallace Stevens was easily one of the biggest influences on the modernist
styling movement and American poetry in general in the early 20th century.
Often put on a short list with Frost, Eliot, and Pound, he remains one
of the elite poets of that era and any era for that matter. Stevens did
not become interested in verse writing until his time at Harvard University
came around. After some successfully submitted work to the Harvard Advocate,
it was still not until 36 years of age before any of his work was published.
After his first publishing of “Harmonium” he received much peer respect,
but lacked the critical acclaim he desired. This not quite stellar debut
left Stevens frustrated and he ended up giving up the poetry game for nearly
a full decade. This rocky start though was no indication of his career
to come. Successfully balancing a career as a businessman/lawyer with his
love of poetry he developed his philosophical mentality and vivid sense
of the absurd. Stevens would capture the mind at play, youthful pleasure,
and delights of the sensual body. These subtle investigations into the
reality of human perception were often denied by him. He would often claim
all of his work were nothing more than “speculations” of the imagination.
Yet, his flirtatious denials were nothing to take entirely seriously and
were quickly seen as intentionally weak coverups. This successful Clark
Kent like lifestyle, with the shrewd businessman by day and poet by long
summer nights, led him to poetic greatness matched by few.
“Few poets have so fully enjoyed not just their indulgence in their own language, but also the game that elaborately insists no such indulgence is occurring.” --Modern American Poetry Site
WORKS CITED
*The Academy of American Poets: http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=125
*Feigning With the Strange Unlike / A Wallace Stevens Site: http://www.owenbarfield.com/feigning/index.html
*Literature Online-Kennedy & Gioia’s: http://longman.awl.com/kennedy/stevens/biography.html
RELATED LINKS
*The Poet of Two Worlds/University of Texas: http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~mmaynard/316s/paper3/tomi/
*Modern American Poetry/University of Illinois: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/stevens.htm
*Hartford Friends & Enemies of Wallace Stevens: http://www.wesleyan.edu/wstevens/stevens.html