Theory (poem) - Misplaced Pages

(Redirected from Stevens Theory) Poem by Wallace Stevens

"Theory" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1917, and is in the public domain.

Theory

I am what is around me.

Women understand this.
One is not duchess
A hundred yards from a carriage.

These, then are portraits:
A black vestibule;
A high bed sheltered by curtains.

These are merely instances.

Interpretation

Buttel interprets the poem as one of Stevens's attempts to approach the rhythms of prose, as part of a strategic understatement that moves into a poem in an offhand, 'anti-poetic' way. He sees that the instances must carry the strength of the theory, but he says nothing about how to understand theory in Stevens's specific sense, and nothing about what strength amounts to in this context.

Compare the opening line to Byron's assertion in the first lines of Canto III, Stanza LXXII of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: "I live not in myself, but I become / Portion of that around me."

Notes

Buttel, p. 206. See also Librivox Archived 2010-10-13 at the Wayback Machine

References

Buttel, Robert. Wallace Stevens: The Making of Harmonium. 1967: Princeton University 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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