The Emperor of Ice-Cream

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The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Recitation
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The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Contents

"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is a poem by Wallace Stevens's first collection of poetry, Harmonium (1923). Stevens' biographer, Paul Mariani, identifies the poem as one of Stevens' personal favorites from Harmonium. [1] The poem "wears a deliberately commonplace costume", he wrote in a letter, "and yet seems to me to contain something of the essential gaudiness of poetry; that is the reason why I like it". [2]

Structure and meaning

The simple poetic structure is of two stanzas related by an identical closing verse in each stanza. The poem is only clarified in its allusion upon completion of the reading of the second stanza which identifies a "cold" and "dumb" body as common references to a dead body. In this case a dead body is being prepared for a funeral. [3]

According to the critic Helen Vendler, quoted by Austin Allen, the ice-cream in the poem is being prepared for serving at a funeral wake. [3] The use of holiday sweets and heavy desserts for funerals is part of the culture of varying civilizations. In this case the reference is likely to pre-Castro Cuba, which Stevens visited during business trips to Florida. The "emperor" of ice cream is illustrated through imagery by Stevens as sufficiently ruddy to churn the ice-cream and blend its sugar in order to make the customary funeral treat used in the country. [3]

In his book on Stevens, Thomas C. Grey sees the poem as a harsh didactic lesson studying the use of the metaphor of "coldness." Grey states, "Stevens knows the corruptions of coldness as well as its beauties. Chief among them is the heartless selfishness, represented by the sweet sinister cold of 'The Emperor of Ice-Cream.' In the kitchen a cigar-rolling man whips 'concupiscent curds' of ice cream as the wenches come and go; in the adjoining bedroom, a dead woman lies in undignified discard, 'cold ... and dumb' under a sheet, her horny feet protruding. Both rooms teach the cynical wisdom that 'The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream': what you see is what you get; look out for Number One; enjoy the sweet cold before the bitter cold claims you." [4]

According to Norman Foerster, instigator of the New Humanist movement in American criticism, this poem has been discussed for a long time, but maybe we mistake an exact meaning. Foerster wrote: “At this funeral (or wake) there is to be neither the pretense nor the fact of morbid grief.” These are expressed by ice-cream in this poem. At the same time there is neither disrespect for the dead nor a blinking of the fact of poverty and death. The world of his poem is a realistic and stable one. [5]

According to Syunsuke Kamei, an honorary professor at the University of Tokyo and a scholar of American literature, this poem was composed by Stevens for his daughter. Stevens had a strong sense of fulfillment of life. He did not see death in a special light. This poem is telling us to take things easy, but seriously. Ice cream is an incarnation of a sense of fulfillment. It is easily melted, but it is a natural thing. Stevens tells us to enjoy the ice cream now. Ice-cream is a symbol of the summit of ordinary people’s delight. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wallace Stevens</span> American poet (1879–1955)

Wallace Stevens was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Vendler</span> American poetry critic (1933–2024)

Helen Vendler was an American academic, writer and literary critic. She was a professor of English language and history at Boston University, Cornell, Harvard, and other universities. Her academic focus was critical analysis of poetry and she studied poets from Shakespeare and George Herbert to modern poets such as Wallace Stevens and Seamus Heaney. Her technique was close reading, which she described as "reading from the point of view of a writer".

"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.

"O Florida, Venereal Soil" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in the journal Dial, volume 73, July 1922, and is therefore in the public domain.

"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.

"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.

"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, so it is still under copyright. However, it is quoted here as justified by Fair use to facilitate scholarly commentary.

"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".

"Bantams in Pine-Woods" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1922 in the poetry journal Dial, along with five other poems, all under the title "Revue." It is in the public domain.

"Anecdote of the Jar" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. Wallace Stevens is an important figure in 20th century American poetry. The poem was first published in 1919, it is in the public domain. Wallace Stevens wrote the poem in 1918 when he was in the town of Elizabethton, Tennessee.

The Bird With The Coppery, Keen Claws is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was originally published in 1921, so it is in the public domain. Librivox has made the poem available in voice recording in its The Complete Public Domain Poems of Wallace Stevens.

"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 by Wallace Stevens. It is among those added to the 1931 reissue of Stevens' first collection Harmonium. The poem was originally part of the unpublished Lettres d'un Soldat (1914–1915). 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 Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade" is a poem from the second edition (1931) of Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium.

"Lunar Paraphrase" is a poem from the second (1931) edition of Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. One of Stevens's "war poems" from "Lettres d'un Soldat" (1918), it is in the public domain.

"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

  1. ↑ Mariani, Paul. ‘’The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens,’’ Simon & Schuster, 2016, pp. 149–198.
  2. ↑ Stevens, Wallace. Letter to William Rose Benét. 6 January 1933.
  3. 1 2 3 Allen, Austin. "Wallace Stevens: "The Emperor of Ice-Cream": The chilly heart of a whimsical poem". Resources. Poetry Foundation. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
  4. ↑ Grey, Thomas. The Wallace Stevens Case. Harvard University Press. 1991. Page 99-100.
  5. ↑ Foerster, Norman; Falk, Robert. American Poetry and Prose. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960,
  6. ↑ Waga Amerika bunkashi (My American Culture Journal)/ Shyunsuke Kamei / Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. /2003
  7. ↑ "Lyrics:Pencil Rain – TMBW: The They Might Be Giants Knowledge Base". TMBW. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
  8. ↑ "Publication: The Empire of Ice Cream". www.isfdb.org. Retrieved 2017-10-17.

Bibliography

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