Gubbinal - Misplaced Pages

Poem by Wallace Stevens

"Gubbinal" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It is in the public domain according to Librivox.

Interpretation

It can be read as one of his "poems of epistemology", as B. J. Leggett styles it in his Nietzschean reading of Stevens' perspectivism, a minimalistic statement of his interest in the relationship between imagination and the world. The term 'gubbinal' may derive from 'gubbin', slang for a dullard, referring here to someone who takes the world to be ugly and the people sad.

Gubbinal

That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.

The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.

That tuft of jungle feathers,
That animal eye,
Is just what you say.

That savage of fire,
That seed,
Have it your way.

The world is ugly,
And the people are sad.

Notes

"COMPLETE: Public Domain Poems of W Stevens, Vol. 1 - PO/ez". LibriVox Forum. Archived from the original on October 13, 2010. Retrieved September 27, 2010.
Leggett, B. J. "On "The Snow Man"". Retrieved September 27, 2010. Excerpted from Leggett, Early Stevens: The Nietzschean Intertext, 1992, Duke University Press.
Nicholson, p. 23: "In somewhat arcane slang 'gubbin' means what it sounds like, a dull person --- the 'you' who insists on the sad ugliness of the world."

References

Leggett, B.J. Early Stevens: The Nietzchean Intertext. 1982: Duke UP.
Nicholson, Mervyn. "Reading Stevens' Riddles." College English, Vol. 50, No. 1. (Jan., 1988), pp. 13–31.
Peterson, Margaret. Wallace Stevens and the idealist tradition. 1983: UMI Research Press

v t e Harmonium by Wallace Stevens
"Earthy Anecdote" "Invective Against Swans" "The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage" "The Plot Against the Giant" "Infanta Marina" "Domination of Black" "The Snow Man" "The Ordinary Women" "The Load Of Sugar-Cane" "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" "Nuances of a Theme by Williams" "Metaphors of a Magnifico" "Ploughing on Sunday" "Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges" "Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores" "Fabliau of Florida" "Doctor of Geneva" "Homunculus et la Belle Etoile" "The Comedian as the Letter C" "From the Misery of Don Joost" "O Florida, Venereal Soil" "Last Looks at the Lilacs" "The Worms at Heaven's Gate" "The Jack-Rabbit" "Valley Candle" "Anecdote of Men by the Thousand" "The Apostrophe to Vincentine" "Floral Decorations for Bananas" "Anecdote of Canna" "On the Manner of Addressing Clouds" "Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb " "Of the Surface of Things" "Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks" "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman" "The Place of the Solitaires" "The Weeping Burgher" "The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician" "Banal Sojourn" "Depression Before Spring" "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" "The Cuban Doctor" "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon" "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" "Sunday Morning" "The Virgin Carrying a Lantern" "Stars at Tallapoosa" "Explanation" "Six Significant Landscapes" "Bantam in Pine-Woods" "Anecdote of the Jar" "Palace of the Babies" "Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs" "Jasmine's Beautiful Thoughts Underneath The Willow" "Cortège for Rosenbloom" "Tattoo" "The Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws" "Life Is Motion" "The Wind Shifts" "Colloquy with a Polish Aunt" "Gubbinal" "Two Figures in Dense Violet Night" "Theory" "To the One of Fictive Music" "Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion" "Peter Quince at the Clavier" "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" "Nomad Exquisite" "The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad" "The Death of a Soldier" "Negation" "The Surprises of the Superhuman" "Sea Surface Full of Clouds" "The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade" "Lunar Paraphrase" "Anatomy of Monotony" "The Public Square" "Indian River" "Tea"

Harmonium by Wallace Stevens

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