Date of Award
7-1958
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
First Advisor
Dr. John Q. Reed
Keywords
Mythology in Literature, Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) -- Criticism and Interpretation
Abstract
"Poetry is my way of making the world palatable. It's a way of making one's experience, almost wholly inexplicable, inexplicable, acceptable. "1 Thus spoke Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955.
Friar and Brinin in their Modern Poetry state:
The use of metaphysical and symbolist devices has grown out of the modern poet's search for a mythology which might replace that of the degenerating Christian culture, and which might offer him some concrete body of belief for metaphor and metaphisic.2
Wallace Stevens in his search for a satisfying answer to man's existence and his method of adapting himself to that existence has developed a mythology of some three hundred characters, including Biblical, classical mythological, historical, and standard fictional characters. His dramatis personae also includes over one hundred original creations, such as Chief Iffucan, Canon Aspirin, Professor Eucalyptus, Augusta Moon, etc. Speaking of modern poets in general, and of Wallace Stevens in particular, Lloyd Frankenberg surmised, "Inventing an imaginary world, an idol of reality, we enlarge our ideas of reality, a true form of worship."3
No one has made a study of the mythology of Wallace Stevens. Scattered comments among the numerous periodical articles refer occasionally to the characters in the poem being analyzed, but no concentrated effort has been made to amass his characters and view them as a whole. It is the purpose of this study to present the classical mythological characters of Stevens' personae: to evaluate their importance in the poetry as a whole and to fix their relationship with the other members of Stevens' imaginary world. To achieve these points, four steps shall be followed: (1) an analysis of the poem which involves one or more mythological characters, (2) an identification of the god or hero and his chief attributes, (3) an interpretation of his qualities in the specific poem, and (4) a statement of his relationship to other classical mythological figures used in Stevens' poetry.
"We use analysis properly," states Blackmuir in his Form and Value in Modern Poetry, " in order to discard it and return that much better equipped to the poem."4 This, to some extent, shall be the purpose of this study as it has been in the very few studies published concerning the works of Wallace Stevens. In "A Prefatory Note" to his critical study of Stevens, The Shaping Spirit, William Van O' Connor declares:
My purpose in publishing this examination will be served if it makes Stevens' poetry understandable in a fuller and more coherent way for those among his readers who have not had occasion to examine it in its entirety, or having read it entire wish to compare their understanding of it with another reader.5
O' Connor's valuable book discusses the major poems of the poet written up to 1950, five years before Steven's death.
"Despite its importance," O' Connor comments:
the poetry of Wallace Stevens had not received critical attention of the kind lavished on the poetry of T.S. Eliot or W.B. Yeats... Although a few critics have recently begun to give his poetry more careful scrutiny, and many younger poets, as students of his work are greatly in his debt, further detailed studies such as those undertaken by the late Hi Simons are needed before this definitive and exhaustive assessment of his poetry will be possible.6
Samuel French Morse, a poet, the editor of Stevens' Opus Posthumous, and a personal friend of the poet, is at work on a critical biography.
Recommended Citation
DeGruson, Eugene H., "THE GODS THAT BOUCHER KILLED: A STUDY OF THE USE OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN THE POETRY OF WALLACE STEVEWS" (1958). Electronic Theses & Dissertations. 530.
https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/etd/530
