In:
PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Modern Language Association (MLA), Vol. 91, No. 2 ( 1976-03), p. 206-222
Abstract:
Wallace Stevens noted in his journal that while aphorisms are never believed for very long they help us make brief, intensely felt discoveries about ourselves; there he made a connection between his love of aphoristic expression and his theory of human perception of reality as a perception of fragments, never the whole. Exploring the nature and variety of his aphorisms as a manifestation of this concept is important to the understanding of his poems. The tendency to experience life as fragments is, on the one hand, a centripetal tendency akin to aphoristic expression, since in each case one momentarily pulls experience into a self-contained unit. But such moments invariably give rise to a centrifugal tendency, an encompassing of the plenitude of experience in all its contradictory fullness. The juxtaposition of these opposing tendencies lies at the heart of Stevens' aphoristic technique and of the tension in much of his poetry.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0030-8129
,
1938-1530
Language:
English
Publisher:
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Publication Date:
1976
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2439580-8
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209526-9
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2066864-8
SSG:
7,11
SSG:
7,24
SSG:
7,12
