The Snow Man

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The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Contents

"The Snow Man" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium , first published in the October 1921 issue of the journal Poetry.

Overview

Sometimes classified as one of Stevens' "poems of epistemology", it can be read as an expression of the naturalistic skepticism that he absorbed from his friend and mentor George Santayana. It is doubtful that anything can be known about a substantial self (Santayana was an epiphenomenalist) or indeed about substances in the world apart from the perspectives that human imagination brings to "the nothing that is" when it perceives "junipers shagged with ice", etc. There is something wintry about this insight, which Stevens captures in The Necessary Angel by writing, "The world about us would be desolate except for the world within us." [1] [ original research? ]

The poem is an expression of Stevens' perspectivism, leading from a relatively objective description of a winter scene to a relatively subjective emotional response (thinking of misery in the sound of the wind), to the final idea that the listener and the world itself are "nothing" apart from these perspectives. Stevens has the world look at winter from a different point of view. When thinking of winter, one might think of a harsh storm. One might also think snow and ice to be a nuisance. Stevens wants people to see the opposite view. He wants the world to look at winter in a sense of optimism and beauty. He creates a difference between imagination and reality. See "Gubbinal" and "Nuances of a Theme by Williams" for comparisons.[ original research? ]

B.J. Leggett construes Stevens's perspectivism as commitment to the principle that "instead of facts we have perspectives, none privileged over the others as truer or more nearly in accord with things as they are, although not for that reason all equal." [2] This principle that "underlies Nietzschean thought" is central to Leggett's reading. [3] It may be observed that Stevens's remark in the passage quoted above from The Necessary Angel falls short of conforming to that principle, implying a condition of `the world about us' that is distinct from the perspectives we bring to it.[ original research? ]

Notes

  1. ↑ Stevens, p. 169.
  2. ↑ Leggett, p. 6.
  3. ↑ Stevens. H., p. 432: "The incessant job is to get into focus, not out of focus. Nietzsche is as perfect a means of getting out of focus as a little bit too much to drink." (Letter from Wallace Stevens to Henry Church, December 8, 1942)

The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, New York: Vintage Books, 1954.

Related Research Articles

Wallace Stevens American poet

Wallace Stevens was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and he spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.

George Santayana Spanish-American philosopher

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana, was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Originally from Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the US from the age of eight and identified himself as an American, although he always retained a valid Spanish passport. At the age of 48, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently.

<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.

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"Gubbinal" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923). It is in the public domain according to Librivox.

"Invective Against Swans" is a poem by Wallace Stevens from his first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923).

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"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. The poem consists of thirteen short, separate sections, each of which mentions blackbirds in some way. Although inspired by haiku, none of the sections meets the traditional definition of haiku. It was first published in October 1917 by Alfred Kreymborg in Others: An Anthology of the New Verse and two months later in the December issue of Others: A Magazine of the New Verse.

"The Idea of Order at Key West" is a poem written in 1934 by Modernist poet Wallace Stevens. It is one of many poems included in his book, Ideas of Order. It was also included in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

"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.

"Birches" is a poem by American poet Robert Frost. It was included in Frost's third collection of poetry Mountain Interval, which was published in 1916. Consisting of 59 lines, it is one of Robert Frost's most anthologized poems. Along with other poems that deal with rural landscape and wildlife, it shows Frost as a nature poet.

References

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