19. Wallace Stevens

Modern Poetry (ENGL 310) with Langdon Hammer

Wallace Stevens is considered as an unapologetically Romantic poet of imagination. His search for meaning in a universe without religion in "Sunday Morning" is likened to Crane's energetic quest for meaning and symbol. In "The Poems of Our Climate," Stevens's desire to reduce poetry to essential terms, and then his countering resistance to this impulse, are explored. Finally, "The Man on the Dump" is considered as a typically Stevensian search for truth in specifically linguistic terms.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction: Wallace Stevens
09:22 - Chapter 2. Wallace Stevens Poem: "Sunday Morning"
30:27 - Chapter 3. Wallace Stevens Poem: "The Poems of Our Climate"
38:54 - Chapter 4. Wallace Stevens Poem: "The Man on the Dump"

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu

This course was recorded in Spring 2007.