The Poetry of Wallace Stevens -...
Wallace Stevens
Wallace James Stevens was born on October 2nd, 1879 in Reading, Pennsylvania.
His father, a lawyer, sent Wallace to Harvard as a non-degree special student, after which he moved
to New York City and worked briefly as a journalist.
From there he attended New York Law School and graduated in 1903. On a trip home to Reading in
1904 Stevens met Elsie Viola Kachel, a saleswoman, milliner, and stenographer.
After working for several New York law firms he was hired in January 1908, as a lawyer for the American Bonding Company.
After a 6 year courtship Wallace and Elsie married in 1909 over the objections of his parents. For Wallace it was a seismic event; he never spoke to his father again.
By 1914 Wallace had become the vice-president of the New York office of the Equitable Surety
Company of St. Louis, Missouri. In 1916, he joined Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company and they moved to Hartford. His work was full-time and time for his poetry writing was in short supply.
From January 1922 made several business several visits to Key West, Florida. "The place is a paradise," he wrote to Elsie, "midsummer weather, the sky brilliantly clear and intensely blue, the sea blue and green beyond what you have ever seen."
In 1923 ‘Harmonium’ was published. At last, at age 38, he was an overnight success. His career was
not prodigious in quantity but its quality was exceptional.
In March 1955 Wallace underwent various medical tests and an operation which resulted in a diagnosis of stomach cancer.
He travelled in early June to receive honorary Doctorates at Hartford and Yale.
Wallace was readmitted on July 21st to St. Francis Hospital where his condition deteriorated. Wallace Stevens died on the 2nd August 1955 at the age of 75.
He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955. -
1 - The Poetry of Wallace Stevens - An Introduction
2 - Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens
3 - Six Significant Landscapes by Wallace Stevens
4 - Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock by Wallace Stevens
5 - Two Figures in Dense Violet Light by Wallace Stevens
6 - In The Carolinas by Wallace Stevens
7 - Last Looks at the Lilacs by Wallace Stevens
8 - Gray Room by Wallace Stevens
9 - Tea At the Palaz of Hoon by Wallace Stevens
10 - Hymn From A Watermelon Pavilion by Wallace Stevens
11 - Domination of Black by Wallace Stevens
12 - Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks by Wallace Stevens
13 - Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens
14 - Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens
15 - Phases by Wallace Stevens
16 - Metaphors of a Magnifico by Wallace Stevens
17 - Frogs Eat Butterflies, snakes Eat Frogs, Hogs Eat Snakes, Men Eat Hogs by Wallace Stevens
18 - The Worm's At Heaven's Gate by Wallace Stevens
19 - Tattoo by Wallace Stevens
20 - Another Weeping Woman by Wallace Stevens
21 - The High-toned Old Christian Woman by Wallace Stevens
22 - To the One of Fictive Music by Wallace Stevens
23 - Peter Quince at the Clavier by Wallace Stevens
24 - The Emperor of Ice Cream by Wallace Stevens
25 - The Wind Shifts by Wallace Stevens
26 - The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens
27 - Nomad Exquisite by Wallace Stevens
28 - The Comedian as the Letter C by Wallace Stevens
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