{"id":1176,"date":"2010-08-31T01:00:18","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2021-04-06T19:51:33","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T07:51:33","slug":"tuesday-poem-the-world-as-meditation-by-wallace-stevens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/08\/31\/tuesday-poem-the-world-as-meditation-by-wallace-stevens\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “The World As Meditation” by Wallace Stevens"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World As Meditation<\/strong><\/p>\n

J’ai pass\u00e9 trop de temps<\/em> \u00e0 travailler mon violon, <\/em>\u00e0 voyager. Mais l’exercice essentiel du compositeur — la m<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>diatation — rien ne l’a jamais suspendu en moi … Je vis un r\u00eave permanent, qui ne s’arr<\/em>\u00eate ni nuit ni jour. — <\/em>Georges Enesco<\/p>\n

Is it Ulysses that approaches from the east,
\nThe interminable adventurer? The trees are mended.
\nThat winter is washed away. Someone is moving<\/p>\n

On the horizon and lifting himself up above it.
\nA form of fire approaches the cretonnes of Penelope,
\nWhose mere savage presence awakens the world in which she dwells.<\/p>\n

She has composed, so long, a self with which to welcome him,
\nCompanion to his self for her, which she imagined,
\nTwo in a deep-founded sheltering, friend and dear friend.<\/p>\n

The trees had been mended, as an essential exercise
\nIn an inhuman meditation, larger than her own.
\nNo winds like dogs watched over her at night.<\/p>\n

She wanted nothing he could not bring her by coming alone.
\nShe wanted no fetchings. His arms would be her necklace
\nAnd her belt, the final fortune of their desire.<\/p>\n

But was it Ulysses? Or was it only the warmth of the sun
\nOn her pillow? The thought kept beating in her like her heart.
\nThe two kept beating together. It was only day.<\/p>\n

It was Ulysses and it was not. Yet they had met,
\nFriend and dear friend and a planet’s encouragement.
\nThe barbarous strength within her would never fail.<\/p>\n

She would talk a little to herself as she combed her hair,
\nRepeating his name with its patient syllables,
\nNever forgetting him that kept coming constantly so near.<\/p>\n

Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

I have always loved the Greek myths and legends, including the story of Penelope and Odysseus (here called Ulysses.) Their story has crept into my own writing through stories like Ithaca<\/strong> <\/em>(JAAM 26<\/strong>) and the Ithaca Conversations<\/strong> <\/em>poetry sequence, but Wallace Stevens’ The World As Meditation <\/em><\/strong>is, in my view, one of the outstanding and powerful expressions of the point of view of Penelope. Otherwise I will let the poem speak for itself, which I feel it does quite adequately without my intervention or interpretation.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Wallace Stevens<\/strong> (October 2, 1879 \u2013 August 2, 1955) was an American<\/a> Modernist<\/a> poet<\/a>. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World As Meditation J’ai pass\u00e9 trop de temps \u00e0 travailler mon violon, \u00e0 voyager. Mais l’exercice essentiel du compositeur — la m\u00e9diatation — rien ne l’a jamais suspendu en moi … Je vis un r\u00eave permanent, qui ne s’arr\u00eate ni nuit ni jour. — Georges Enesco Is it Ulysses that approaches from the east, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39077,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions\/39077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}