Sunday Morning By Wallace Steven

Name

Instructor Name

Art 101

19 November 2018

Sunday Morning by Wallace Steven

Wallace Steven is an American modernist poet. He attended Harvard University from 1897 to 1900 as a student. Steven’s first writing period begins with his publication of the Harmonium Collection in 1923. Stevens dealt with the transformative power of imagination ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"cSXH5b7l","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}Wallace Stevens | American Poet | Britannica.Com})","plainCitation":"(Wallace Stevens | American Poet | Britannica.Com)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":323,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/BW27BW8I"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/BW27BW8I"],"itemData":{"id":323,"type":"webpage","title":"Wallace Stevens | American poet | Britannica.com","URL":"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wallace-Stevens","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,7]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Wallace Stevens | American Poet | Britannica.Com). His poem "Sunday Morning" is a sublime poetic meditation - almost a philosophical poem - based on a few basic questions: Can we believe in an afterlife? What happens to us when we die? If we can’t, what comfort can we take in the only life we get? As the First World War strengthened and Stevens approached the Middle Age, he addressed these issues with quiet earnestly in a beautiful poem. Sunday Morning is a meditative poem in which Stevens introduces a woman who is afraid of death when she hears the church bells ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"HEbSOB5U","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens: Summary and Critical Analysis})","plainCitation":"(Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens: Summary and Critical Analysis)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":328,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/YGU3YHFW"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/YGU3YHFW"],"itemData":{"id":328,"type":"webpage","title":"Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens: Summary and Critical Analysis","URL":"https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/sunday-morning.html#.XcPrFugzYdU","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,7]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens: Summary and Critical Analysis). The poet first appreciates the rational thoughts of the woman as she refuses to accept the romantic ideas of the Christian hereafter and wants to make her life meaningful on this earth herself. However, when the woman seeks a kind of "imperishable bliss", the poet goes against her and begins to criticize her anxiety ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"y1Q4jJOf","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}Essay on An Analysis of Sunday Morning -- Sunday Morning})","plainCitation":"(Essay on An Analysis of Sunday Morning -- Sunday Morning)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":325,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/25ECWIIN"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/25ECWIIN"],"itemData":{"id":325,"type":"webpage","title":"Essay on An Analysis of Sunday Morning -- Sunday Morning","URL":"https://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=6027","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,7]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Essay on An Analysis of Sunday Morning -- Sunday Morning). Stevens inclined to reject questions or interpretations of this poem. To enhance the intended impacts and to create a special effect in the poem, Wallace Steven has used literary devices. His sobriety of what may perhaps be his most anthologized work may indicate that he considered the poem's interpretation clear and obvious.

"Sunday Morning" is one of Steven’s more traditional poems and consists of blank-verse sections of varying lengths. In the first section of the poem, the woman enjoys "complacencies of the peignoir, and late / Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"uSI7Wj1J","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}Stev-Sund.Pdf})","plainCitation":"(Stev-Sund.Pdf)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":327,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/EECUSB3J"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/EECUSB3J"],"itemData":{"id":327,"type":"article","title":"stev-sund.pdf","URL":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/30389/stev-sund.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,7]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Stev-Sund.Pdf)", but the joy of living leads her to recognize her evanescence, to remember her church. “Sunday Morning" consists of self-contained stanzas, all of the same length. The order of the final version is different from the original form of the poem. The baseline in Stevens' poem is a solemn and heavy blank verse. He also uses an iambic pentameter and uses echoes rather than end rhyme. For example, in the second section, he uses the words "passions, grief, elation, and, emotions ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"sZOsH80h","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}Stev-Sund.Pdf})","plainCitation":"(Stev-Sund.Pdf)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":327,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/EECUSB3J"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/EECUSB3J"],"itemData":{"id":327,"type":"article","title":"stev-sund.pdf","URL":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/30389/stev-sund.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,7]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Stev-Sund.Pdf)." In several places in the poem, the verse has an imposing quality and strength that can be used to emphasize the poem's message. This is particularly the case in the last seven lines of the poem, in which deer, quail whistling and the sweetness of ripe berries are the attractions of nature. The poet in the poem, "Sunday Morning", uses assertions and rhetorical questions. These are used to question the rationality of traditional religious beliefs. However, the poem conveys its message primarily through images, many of which evoke vivid colors, movements, and vivacious tastes and smells to contrast with the darkness and insignificance of spiritual occupations.

Death is an active and positive force represented by verbs such as "shiver," "strews," and "stray impassioned." Passion and other stout emotions are only possible because people know that life is transitory. The description of a human ritual in the seventh section uses energetic images: "supple and turbulent", "savage", "boisterous". On the other hand, there is an imaginary paradise, in which there is "no change of death", only rivers that never reach the sea, ripe fruits that never fall away. The title of the poem is symbolic. The sun is not only a source of comfort for the woman sitting in the chair, but also a symbol of the definitive source of life and chaos in the natural world. The last two stanzas debate each other as the language of the last verse itself. Humanity could someday achieve a blissful union with nature, but the arbitrariness and beauty of the world evade one for the time being. More than skepticism, it is this indecision that characterizes the poem as modern. "Sunday Morning" is the first of Stevensian sequences that revolve around philosophical matters without ever landing on a particular pole ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"4VVvMVzp","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Academic)","plainCitation":"(Academic)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":330,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/CT9IB93T"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/WcSf8WB9/items/CT9IB93T"],"itemData":{"id":330,"type":"post-weblog","title":"Critical Literary Analysis of Wallace Stevens' \"Sunday Morning\"","container-title":"Academic Help","URL":"http://studentacademichelp.blogspot.com/2009/10/critical-literary-analysis-of-wallace.html","author":[{"family":"Academic","given":""}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2009",10,24]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,7]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Academic). At this early stage, Stevens is half-connected with the Romantics' ideas, but in the disenchantment of his era and the spread of the American landscape, he found a new vagueness and freedom.

Stevens in this poem conveys the message through the use of literary devices that, although Paradise is considered the most attractive place, trust and faith in God should be above all, and humanity should understand and think carefully about God and the power associated with God. The essay points out the technique of literary devices used by the poet to enhance the idea he wants to share with the readers. Words have hidden meanings, they can be used differently according to the context. Poets especially use such techniques to beautify the concept they want to share. Wallace Steven uses simple words in his poem to share complex ideas with the readers. The creativity lies in the use of words to form the intendant meaning of the poem. Although Steven is a modern poet but there is a glimpse of romanticism in his poem. The essay tends to highlight Steven’s use of the words which cannot be interpreted as it is. Deep understanding of the use of words is important to perceive or interpret the particular piece of literature.

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Academic. “Critical Literary Analysis of Wallace Stevens’ ‘Sunday Morning.’” Academic Help, 24 Oct. 2009, http://studentacademichelp.blogspot.com/2009/10/critical-literary-analysis-of-wallace.html.

Essay on An Analysis of Sunday Morning -- Sunday Morning. https://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=6027. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

Stev-Sund.Pdf. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/30389/stev-sund.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens: Summary and Critical Analysis. https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/sunday-morning.html#.XcPrFugzYdU. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

Wallace Stevens | American Poet | Britannica.Com. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wallace-Stevens. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.