Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks

Last updated

"Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It was one of the few Harmonium poems first published in that volume, [1] so it is still under copyright. However, it is quoted here as justified by Fair use to facilitate scholarly commentary.

Contents

Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks

 In the moonlight
 I met Berserk,
 In the moonlight
 On the bushy plain.
 Oh, sharp he was
 As the sleepless!

 And, "Why are you red
 In this milky blue?"
 I said.

 "Why sun-colored,
 As if awake
 In the midst of sleep?"

 "You that wander,"
 So he said,
 "On the bushy plain,
 Forget so soon.
 But I set my traps
 In the midst of dreams."

 I knew from this
 That the blue ground
 Was full of blocks
 And blocking steel.
 I knew the dread
 Of the bushy plain,

 And the beauty
 Of the moonlight
 Falling there,
 Falling
 As sleep falls
 In the innocent air.

Interpretation

The poem marks Stevens's realization that the life of the imagination is more complex and fraught with peril than he had once supposed.

Robert Buttel is impressed by an "eerie collocation of colors" which contributes to the "disturbing effect of the invasion of the world of moonlight and dream by Berserk, who personifies the violence of day." [1]

Vendler understands the poem as Stevens meeting his own potential madness. The prince of peacocks, the poet, meets Berserk, who will not be evaded even in dreams. She thinks that the initial promise of the poem, the brutal encounter between the prince and Berserk, is dissipated in the final stanza, "an unrewarding ending". [2]

It may be that Vendler understands the dread in the penultimate stanza to take as its object only the bushy plain. The scope of the dread is narrow. But if the scope is broad, encompassing the final stanza, then the prince knows the dread of the beauty of the moonlight. The eeriness that Buttel mentioned continues to the end of the poem. There isn't a retreat from brutality to incantation, as Vendler sees it, but rather the brutality of the blocks and blocking steel extends into the final stanza.

Compare "The Public Square" for the shared architectural motif.

Notes

  1. 1 2 Buttel, p. 160
  2. ↑ Vendler, p. 16

Related Research Articles

<i>Harmonium</i> (poetry collection) Book by Wallace Stevens

Harmonium is a book of poetry by American poet Wallace Stevens. His first book at the age of forty-four, it was published in 1923 by Knopf in an edition of 1500 copies. This collection comprises 85 poems, ranging in length from just a few lines to several hundred. Harmonium was reissued in 1931 with three poems omitted and fourteen new poems added.

"The Ordinary Women" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium.

"Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1918.

"Ploughing on Sunday" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). First published in 1919, it is now in the public domain.

"The Doctor of Geneva" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). The poem was first published in 1921, so it is free of copyright.

"The Apostrophe to Vincentine" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It was first published before 1923 and is therefore in the public domain according to Librivox.

"Anecdote of Canna" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923).

"Of the Surface of Things" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It was first published in 1919, so it is in the public domain.

"Sunday Morning" is a poem from Wallace Stevens' first book of poetry, Harmonium. Published in part in the November 1915 issue of Poetry, then in full in 1923 in Harmonium, it is now in the public domain. The first published version can be read at the Poetry web site: The literary critic Yvor Winters considered "Sunday Morning" "the greatest American poem of the twentieth century and... certainly one of the greatest contemplative poems in English".

"The Cuban Doctor" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in the journal Poetry in October 1921, so it is in the public domain.

"Anecdote of the Jar" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. First published in 1919, it is in the public domain.

"Palace of the Babies" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1916 and is therefore in the public domain.

"Two Figures in Dense Violet Light" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1923, so it is still under copyright. Only its first stanza is quoted here.

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

"Colloquy with a Polish Aunt" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1919 and is included in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954).

"Hymn From A Watermelon Pavilion" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1917, so it is in the public domain.

"The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. First published in 1921, it is in the public domain in the United States.

"The Death of a Soldier" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. The poem uses free verse to describe the death of a soldier.

"Sea Surface full of Clouds" is a poem from the second, 1931, edition of Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1924, so it is restricted by copyright. However, brief parts of it are quoted here as fair use, and the whole poem is available elsewhere on the Internet.

"The Public Square" is a poem from the second edition (1931) of Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1923, so it is one of the few poems in the collection that is not free of copyright, but it is quoted here in full as justified by fair use for scholarly commentary.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.