Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard for 1955-1956 ‘because he did not want te retire from business. 1955 Pulitzer Prize. Second National Book Award. Died “August 2. 3957 Opus Posthumous, 1958-1967 Sixteen books published about Stevens, includ. ing several ccllections of critical essays, a bibliography, a concordance to his poetry, and a number of full length studies. Contents Preface vii A Stevens Chronology si Abbreviations xix 1. Wallace Stevens: Theory and Practice 1 i, The Reality of the Imagination a ii. Change 4 Chaos and Oréer 9 Ego and Reality 3 ‘Tae Function of the Imagination 16 vi, The Function of Rhetoric 18 Obscurity 20 viii, Genre 23 ix. The Fiction 34 x. “Thecenterthathe sought wasa state of mind” 8 xi The Impostance of Stevens’ Act 4 II. Readings 37 “The Paltry Node Starts on a Spring Voyage” 37 “Domination of Bleck” 38 “Le Monocle de Mon Oacl2” 38 “The Comedian as the Letter C” 46“On the Manner of Addressing Clouds” “Of Heaven Considered cs a Tomb” “The Emperor af Ice-Crearn” “Sunday Morning” “Bantams in Pine-Woods” “To the One of Fictive Music” “Peter Ouinceat the Clavier” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at 2 Blackbird” “Anatomy of Monotony” “The Idea of Order at Key West” “Evening without Angels” “The Man with the Blue Guitar” “TheMan on the Dump” “Connoisseur of Chaos” “TheSenseof the Sleight of hand Man” “Of Modern Poe “Asides om the Oboe” “Extacts from Adéressesto the ‘Academy of Fine Ideas” “Dutch Graves in Bucks County” “No Possum, No Sop, NoTaters” “So-And So Reciining on Hex Couch” “Bsthétique du Mal” “Man Carrying Thing” “Notes toward a Supreme Fiction” “Large Red Man Reading” “This Solitude of Cataracts” “Saint John and the Back Ache” “An Ordinary Evening ia New Haven” “Angel Surrounded by Paysans” “The Plain Sense of Things” “Looking across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly” “Long and SIuggish Lines” “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour” “"The Rock” “The River of Rivers in Connecticut” “The Course of a Particular” “RealityIsan Activity of the Most August Imagination” litaire under the Oaks” “Local Objects” “Artificial Populations” “A Clear Day and No Memories” “As You Leave the Room” “Of Mere Being” CONTENTS Mii 16 oF 19 199 200 203 202 293, 204, III. A Guide to Stevens’ Collected Poetry 21¢ Selected Stevens Criticism