The giant, the bully, and the first idea

The giant is poetry, the giant is doctrine of the "first idea"?

The freed man, escaping the truth of the "first idea", is freed for the "first idea"?

If the first idea is the creation of man, might Wallace Stevens be thinking about the miracle of the imagination? Is imagination the bully, the giant worthy of escaping?

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (WS pg. 333) It Must Be Abstract Stanza VII

It feels good as it is without the giant,

A thinker of the first idea. Perhpas

The truth depends on a walk around a lake,

New to poetry and new to something explained by Dr. Sexon as tersets, I approach Stanza VII in Notes to a Supreme Fiction as composed in Tersets. I therefore will decompose each terset (set of three lines) to thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. And immediately a thesis emerges as a freed man feeling good in the first line of the first terset.

If the thinker of the first idea in the antithesis (second line) is the giant, then doctrine is an oppressor. However I think the thinker of the first idea is the latest freed man. If that is a correct assumption, then creating or allowing the imagination to plant a thought is what the thinker does without oppression and it makes the thinker feel good.

To synthesize the third line, if a thinker freed of the bully-doctrine seeks truth, a walk around a lake is in order.

A composing as the body tires, a stop

To see hepatica, a stop to watch

A definition growing certain and

Thesis: The thesis here is an opposite of composing, rather a decomposing with age like hearing Beethoven's symphony played backward from his grave (a childhood joke). The thesis suggests assembling of thoughts and ideas as one matures.

Antithesis: Don't think and arrest every idea. Merely look at the three lobed leaved white-lavender flowers of the North American hepatica.

Synthesis: Watch the growing definition. Thinking is preceded with looking. In a drawing class, our assignment was to place the pencil on the paper and draw on the paper without lifting the pencil, eyes intent on the subject. What happened within moments was a clearly evolving clarity for details undetected at the onset. In Wednesdays class we learned that the answer to "What do you think about the snow this morning?" is "Yes!." I could not help but notice that morning in the snow the silence of my lovely alfa dog Sara's footprints, the doctrine to my mornings as I rise at six and sit on the edge of my bed. I see her footprints in the snow and know if she has arisen from her bed and made that trip for water and food for the next act of leaving it for decomposition. Without snow, I am alerted by her noisy clatter of long fingernails hitting the deck like a drunken sailor. The snow silenced the sailor. The sailor, Sara, is beyond 14 years. 12 years is the life expectancy for her breed. She composes in maturity her dance with the cowbirds who share her food and water for the next act of decomposition as I decompose this composition.

A wait within that certainty, a rest

In the swags of pain-trees bordering the lake.

Perhaps there are times of inherent excellence,

Thesis: Clarity from looking needs maturity, as the body tires

Antithesis: The walk around the lake is a meander into tough times of past experience. However, this could mean the doctrine of the tree of life and something someone accused me of sitting in an airplane headed for D.C., "you too were born a sinner." I moved to another seat after silently agreeing that he probably was becoming a sinner in his attempt to stir my coffee.

Synthesis: Clarity is evasive and punctuated with moments of false hope. Jason's blog about others reading too much of their own thoughts into the readings of Stevens's poems is surfacing in my own interpretation of Stanza VII.

As when the cock crows on the left and all

Is well, incalculable balances

At which a kind of Swiss perfection comes

Thesis: Carlos Castenada and Don Juan de la Cruz suggest the crow, not the cock, coming from left behind means death.

Antithesis: Don't believe the cock crowing and all is well, a bird is a bird and the sun may rise without the crow[ing].

Synthesis: The ticking of the clock perfectly balances life and death, composing comes as the body tires. What will be will be. I read for forty days and nights the three books composing the teachings of Don Juan de la Cruz. I walked through the woods with my fingers in the exact position to draw in the energy. I was at the center of reality seeing the realness of the words on the page and how each stanza influenced my real life experiences. I even say myself jump off the cliff at the "cliff hanger" end of the second book. It was only in the final pages of the third book that Don Juan de la Cruz revealed the secret to clarity, something like this, "You would not have believed me if I had told you this truth before you lived it yourself."

And a familiar music of the machine

Sets up its Schwarmerei, not balances

That we achieve but balances that happen.

Thesis: Civilization is the hubbub of every day

Antithesis: Civilization sets up its Schwarmerei (don't know what that is so I will imagine it to be a bullying doctrine of how things should, ought, must be)

Synthesis: What will be will be is not the same as the scenario set up by civilized doctrine.

As a man and woman meet and love forthwith.

Perhaps there are moments of awakening,

Extreme fortuitous, personal, in which

Thesis: Balance defined as man + woman + momentous love; perhaps the man is the thinker (after all this is not yet the 50s) and the woman the muse with the imagination the love forthwith.

Antithesis: Clarity is a only a punctuation

Synthesis: Lucky encounter

We more than awaken, sit on the edge of sleep,

As on an elevation, and behold

The academies like structures in a mist.

Thesis: Somewhere we realize a balance between life and death

Antithesis: Sitting on our bullying perch of doctrine and set up

Synthesis: Schools of thinking instead of looking.

Tying this Stanza back to the poem of memorization, The Latest Freed Man, the subject of truth and doctrine and who is the delivering entity for what purpose comes to mind. It is an ox-like struggle to escape another's doctrine lorded from a high perch. The ox-like struggle and change to being freed comes from the strength that is the strength of the sun. My project places the sun as a candle in the center of Plato's Cave to explore comparative perspectives on how strength emerges from the sun. This morning I am reminded of Alfred E. Newman and the purpose of his 60 year MADness success: be[a]ware the content in everything you see, hear, and think; and question authority.

The giant is poetry, the giant is doctrine of the "first idea"?

The freed man, escaping the truth of the "first idea", is freed for the "first idea"?

If the first idea is the creation of man, might Wallace Stevens be thinking about the miracle of the imagination? Is imagination the bully, the giant worthy of escaping?

If you already know where you are going...

Ashley found a connection with Wallace Stevens's "The Beginning", a place to look "if you don't know where you're going". Her connection reminded me of a Cezanne quote that I taped to my computer for years working in the sciences. The quote somewhat goes, "If you already know what you are going to do, why bother doing it?" We talked in class of Wallace Stevens understanding of, if it was prior knowledge, where he intended to go with his poesis; to meander a while before returning to where he knew he would return, the beginning.

This "poem as act", or intent with purpose, connected with my interest in Dustin's insights in the dismissal of the intellect almost and the "isms" of literature in process. I wonder if Cezanne's suggestion to avoid acting on knowledge as an artist is in part inspired by the contemporary conversations about a dismissal of the intellect almost.

An Adagio rose upon me in my bed from Page 903.

I

All of our ideas come from the natural world: Trees = umbrellas.

I am allergic to trees. Trees and cat dander, latex, and peach fuzz; and alfalfa.

If latex wasn't from nature, the sap of a plant, Stevens's words might not be more clear.

Nature caused my parents to leave the fertile alfalfa fields of Wyoming to protect me. A blind doctor helped me breathe by soaking whole wheat bread dough in vinegar and wrapping my chest each night. When I think back on denying my allergies so that I could work in the farm dust with my siblings, I think back on a legacy of denying allergies to go to work, to engage in social interactions, and to live. No complaints mind you, thoughts of my life bring a smile and a giggle.

As I try to make sense of natural allergies to nature, perhaps I am allergic to ideas as well. I work in a world of land resources and environmental science where the natural Truth is actually an anti-Truth, or everything that is 'not' proven to be True. Is Truth even an Idea? Presentation of scientific results always begin with "I could be wrong, but...", something the news media seem to forget to include. 

[Not in the Adagio] With trees as others' umbrellas, my ideas come in the rain.

A second Adagio resounded from Page 901

The evening's thought is like a day of clear weather.

LA Story is an intertext to William Shakespeare's Madea.

The freeway Amber alert sign warns travelers of inclement weather until all is resolved at the end of the story, All Clear.

William Shakespeare's Madea is an intertext of a much earlier poet's writing, but I don't remember who that is right now. I know because I forgot to put it on a test and got a B- instead of the A I prepared for. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I knew the answer all the way home before the paper was even graded. 

I fell through a hole in a floor at a neighbor's house one evening. I didn't know I fell because I found myself lying on the floor wondering where I was. It had been a hard trip by snowmobile to get to the caboose converted to home in the woods where I would not get in too much trouble. It was the first time that day, lying there on the floor, that I realized a peace away from a snowmobile bouncing and bumping, lying there on the floor, not knowing where I was, and it was clear that I did not know how I got there or what to do.

Methods is a think king

Methods is a thing king (thinking)

I promised Dr. Sexson the reading citation where I found Wallace Stevens credited as a major influence for the American Modernist poet.

Modernisms' Genetic Code: James Joyce, Wallace Stevens and Pablo Picasso

My long interest in Pablo Picasso's external spirit is merging with my interest in Wallace Stevens's internal spirit. What began with my finding Wallace Stevens referenced as spoken by Samuel Beckett -- "idea of the thing itself and not the idea of the thing"-- in a fictional play with Einstein (Schlossberg), because of Jennifer of Deep Water's interest in Stevens's connections with Beckett, is now transformed in a three-way interest in the cultural configuration of modernism. Daniel R. Schwarz (179-200) searches for Modernism's genetic code, looking at the cultural configuration in readings of Stevens, James Joyce, and Pablo Picasso. Schwarz (201-222) digs deep into Steven's reading of modern painting to illustrate spiritually inquisitive images.

Daniel R. Schwarz (179) states outright that Wallace Stevens is a great Modernist figure; the American poet who best captured the American sensibility in the twentieth century. Stevens, Joyce, and Picasso were all affected, according to Schwarz (180), "by the crisis of belief, the explorations of modern science and technology, and the changing perceptions of reality."

More than any other Modernists, Picasso, Stevens, and Joyce invented forms, techniques, and modes of perception that became part of the cultural genetic code. Yet each of these three figures revitalized the forms in which he worked and became a paradigm for successors.

Yet Schwarz eludes that all three "knew they were auditioning for the role of major artist, the successor to the giants who preceded them." For Stevens, who "saw himself as the heir to Emerson and the English romantics," Schwarz identifies a haunting by personal and cultural memory--the democratic and transcendental traditions of the American mind.

Daniel R. Schwarz argues that Stevens was consciously creating a modern tradition by reinterpreting the tradition that precedes him, Emerson, Whitman, Keats, and Shelley. Schwarz sums up that Joyce, Stevens, and Picasso are "seeking [to create modern symbols] archetypes as the common denominators of human experience," that each wished to "balance romanticism with classicism."

Methods (things) common to Stevens, Joyce, and Picasso; according to Schwarz:

1.  role-playing = experimenting with diverse styles while rapidly changing styles and voices--an essential part of Modernism.

2.   multiple ways of seeing = aesthetic and a value

3.   the specific underlies the universal

4.   employs an element of magical realism to intensify and give mystery - and comedy - to the world he observes.

5.   exorcism of his feelings

6.  metaphors in biography

7.   fascinated by the role of mirrors and glass "I was the world in which I walked." (Stevens 51)

8.   compositions "of variations on motifs, probes, qualifications, and even riffs that do not hold together organically" (184)

9.  dialogically enacts multiple points of view (the metamorphosis of Modernism)

10.   works reference other Modernist thing kings (thinkers): poets, writers, and painters

Schwarz compares works by Joyce, Stevens, and Picasso to argue the common methods employed. 

Tonight my method is role-playing as I walk in the thinking sand by the sea to engage with a new siren, a new mythology of Wallace Stevens (Sexson) and a 1955 American Adam (Lewis).

Works Cited:

Lewis, R. W. B.  The American Adam. Innocence, Tragedy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago:The University of Chicago P. 1955. Print.

Schlossberg, Edwin. Einstein and Beckett. A Record of an Imaginary Discussion with Albert Einstein and Samuel Beckett. New York: 1973. Print.

Schwarz, Daniel R. Reconfiguring Modernism. Explorations in the Relationship between Modern Art and Modern Literature. New York: St. Martin P, 1997. Print.

Sexson, Michael. The New Mythology of Wallace Stevens. Rocky Mountain Review. 34:1 (Winter) 1980.

 

Stevens, Wallace. Collected Poetry and Prose. New York: The Library of America. 1997. Print.

The strength that is the strength of the sun

Like Ashley and others, I too was confused a bit about a poem about poetry. So I set out with an ox-like struggle to unpack a poem and find the reality of poetry within it. I randomly opened Wallace Stevens's Collected Poetry and Prose. The book fell open to page 836, "Uncollected Prose". This is where I began to understand the poem Dr. Sexson asked me to memorize. What a beautiful gift to begin to understand something that is changing the texture of my life.

Wallace Steven, writes, "On Receiving an Honorary Degree from Bard College." (page 837)

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

            The act of conferring an honor on a poet is a poetic act. By a poetic act I mean an act that is a projection of poetry into reality. The act of conferring an academic honor on a poet is a poetic act specifically because it engages all those that participate in it with at least the idea of poetry, for at least a moment, that is to say it engages them with something that is unreal, s if they had opened a door and stepped into another dimension full of the potentialities of any dimension not immediately calculable. What is unreal here is the idea of poetry and the projection of that idea into this present place. To choose the immediate act as an illustration of the poetic act is a choice of expediency only.

Stevens elucidates on the observed "moment" and engagement in the "unreal." It calls to mind the poem Dr. Sexson suggested for memorization (page 187), "The Latest Freed Man". I ask myself, "Is there an expediency of the observed moment?" And, "What is the engagement in the unreal?"

In the first part of "The Latest Freed Man", the author describes the context of what happens to a man upon waking as he "sat on the edge of his bed." The description seems to recount a potentially real context.

Tired of the old descriptions of the world,

The latest freed man rose at six, and sat

On the edge of his bed.

In the next part, Stevens describes how the fictional man describes what happened, how he thinks about what happened. The imaginary man creates an act of poetry in, as Stevens defines (page 837), creating air and space to think about remote things such as the elusive "doctrine of the landscape", and things in the moment, "the moment's rain and sea, / The moment's sun (the strong man vaguely seen)." Stevens compares what we see to poetry, "Just as in space the air envelops objects far away with an ever-deepening blue, so in the dimension of the poetic act the unreal increasingly subtilizes experience and varies appearance. The real is constantly being engulfed in the unreal." Stevens clarifies the act of poetry as thinking, whether liking or not, about something real such as the life of the rich; which is a life we do not share which makes it unreal.

                                    He said,

                                                "I suppose there is

A doctrine to this landscape. Yet, having just

Escaped from the truth, the morning is color and mist,

Which is enough; the moment's rain and sea,

The moment's sun (the strong man vaguely seen),

Overtaking the doctrine of this landscape. Of him

And of his works, I am sure. He bathes in the mist

Like a man without a doctrine. The light he gives--

It is how he gives his light. It is how he shines,

Rising upon the doctors in their beds
And on their beds. . . .

                                    And so the freed man said.

In the third part, Stevens speaks of what just happened to the man and how it came to be. His thinking changes "our sense of the texture of life, but it does not falsify the texture of life (page 837)" because the poet's thinking and how he describes the poet embedded in the would-be ox was never a "poetic act of faith in reality because it could not be (page 838)." We are called to attend to the meaning, the value for the poet to think about the poetic act. "Ordinarily the poet is associated with the word, not with the act; and ordinarily the word collects its strength from the imagination or, with its aid, from reality."

It was how the sun came shining into his room:

To be without a description of to be,

For a moment on rising, at the edge of the bed, to be,

To have the ant of the self changed to an ox

With its organic boomings, to be changed

From a doctor into an ox; before standing up,

To know that the change and that the ox-like struggle

Come from the strength that is the strength of the sun,

Whether it comes directly or from the sun.

In this instance, the poetic moment, the "strength that is the strength of the sun" seems to reflect the imagination, the thinking of the unreal about the real; building the strength of the ox, the vaguely seen but now a strong man cleansed of doctrine, freed of description. Stevens suggests the act of poetry reveals the value of the meaning to the poet.

It was how he was free. It was how his freedom came.

Somewhere between two worlds, the imagination and reality, the poet "strengthens himself to resist the bogus. He has become like a man who can see what he wants to see and touch what he wants to touch (page 838)." Stevens suggests the poem as evidence of what can be; the poem is instance and illustration. "It is an illumination of a surface, the movement of a self in the rock. Above all it is a new engagement with life. It is that miracle to which the true faith of the poet attaches itself." The way of truth, according to Wallace Stevens, is the way of the poem as act: imagination with the aid of reality.

It was how he was free. It was how his freedom came.

It was being without description, being an ox.

It was the importance of the trees outdoors,

The freshness of the oak leaves, not so much

That they were oak-leaves, as the way they looked.

It was everything being more real, himself

As the centre of reality, seeing it.

It was everything bulging and blazing and big in itself,

The blue of the rug, the portrait of Vidal,

Qui fait fi des joliesses banales, the chairs.