The sharp sail of Ulysses seemed,
In the breathings of that soliloquy,
Alive with an enigma's flittering,
And bodying, and being there,
As he moved, straightly, on and on
Through clumped stars dangling all the way.
Here is Stevens the way he talks to me. About Pound, besides himself whom
did he actually cherish?
Opps, I am forgetting that I am also a Pound fan.
On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Stevens' poem Ulysses seems to me to be well ahead of its time for 1954
> both in what it says and its use of language.
> Sally
> Sally Evans
> http://www.poetryscotland.co.uk
> http://groups.msn.com/desktopsallye
> http://www.myspace.com/poetsallyevans
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "kasper salonen" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 1:21 PM
> Subject: Re: Stevens TLS poet of last week
>
>
> I agree with Stevens. I believe in the world in & immediately around
> poetry.
>
> KS
>
> On 22/02/2008, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > TLS February 12, 2008
> >
> > Presence of an External Master of Knowledge
> > by Wallace Stevens;
> >
> > introduced by Mick Imlah
> >
> > "If one no longer believes in God (as truth)", Wallace Stevens once
> > wrote,
> > "it is not possible merely to disbelieve; it becomes necessary to
> believe
> > in
> > something else."
> >
> > For Stevens, born into an affluent family in Pennsylvania in 1879, that
> > "something else" was poetry, conceived of as an independent quest for
> > meaning. This "belief" underpins his late poem, "Presence of an
> External
> > Master of Knowledge"; the poem also relates to Tennyson's "Ulysses"
> > (1842),
> > whose ageing narrator resolves to "follow knowledge like a sinking
> star,
> > /
> > Beyond the utmost bound of human thought".
> >
> > The TLS published "Presence of an External Master of Knowledge in
> > Stevens's
> > seventy-fifth year, in 1954. He died the following summer.
> >
> >
> > Presence of an External Master of Knowledge
> >
> > Under the shape of his sail, Ulysses,
> > Symbol of the seeker, crossing by night
> > The giant sea, read his own mind.
> > He said, "As I know, I am and have
> > The right to be." He guided his boat
> > Beneath the middle stars and said:
> >
> > "Here I feel the human loneliness
> > And that, in space and solitude,
> > Which knowledge is: the world and fate,
> > The right within me and about me,
> > Joined in a triumphant vigor,
> > Like a direction on which I depend . . .
> >
> > A longer, deeper breath sustains
> > This eloquence of right, since knowing
> > And being are one the right to know
> > Is equal to the right to be.
> > The great Omnium descends on me,
> > Like an absolute out of this eloquence."
> >
> > The sharp sail of Ulysses seemed,
> > In the breathings of that soliloquy,
> > Alive with an enigma's flittering,
> > And bodying, and being there,
> > As he moved, straightly, on and on
> > Through clumped stars dangling all the way.
> >
> > WALLACE STEVENS (1954)
> >
>
--
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
|