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Wallace Stevens

The Greatest American Poet of the 20th century
Background of a Poet

Wallace Stevens was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on October 2, 1979. His father was Garret Barcalow Stevens, who was a very wealthy county lawyer.Wallace attended Harvard College in 1893, worked for the New York Tribune in 1900 and gratduated New York Law School in 1903. Thereafter, he married a shop girlnamed Elsie Kachel and they had a daughter in 1924 named Holly.

His Works of Poetry

Stevens wrote a lot of poetry in his lifetime, many of which focused on people he met and personal life experiences. Some of his well known poems are:"A High-Toned Old Christian Woman", "Anecdote of the Jar","Looking Across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly","Madame la Fleurie", "Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself","Sunday Morning" and "The Emperor of Ice-Cream". "Stevens published his first collection of verse, HARMONIUM (1923), at the age of forty-four. Although it was well received by some reviewers, such Marianne Moore, it sold only 100 copies. From one end of the book to the other there is not an idea that can vitally affect the mind, there is not a word that can arouse emotion. The volume is a glittering edifice of icicles. Brilliant as the moon, the book is equally dead," wrote Percy Hutchison in The New York Times (August 9, 1931). Now the collection is regarded as one of the great works of American poetry." After Harmonium he continued to publish a few more books of poetry. He never learned to drive so he walked to work and home everyday. Much of his inspiration came from watching people and overhearing conversations.

Analyzing The Emperor of Ice Cream

"The Emperor of Ice-Cream Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb. Let the lamp affix its beam. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream." This poem made him famous since he focused on the theme that there is more than what meets the eye. The poem seems that there is a party going on and that there is ice cream that's going to be served. As a reader you overlook the fact that there is a dead woman in another room covered by a sheet. Even though there is a sense of joy from the party, as a reader there is a sense of guilt for reading this as something uplifting since there is a theme of death present.  According to Cummingsstudyguides.com "The Emperor of Ice Cream" is open to interpretation. Although the poem suggests meanings behind the words, it does not not explicitly state the meanings. Whereas one reader may regard the planned festivity at the wake as disrespectful to the deceased woman, another reader may regard it as a positive response to the woman's death. After all, life must go on. The point is that perceptions of the world differ from person to person. They are like images on the canvases of painters from different schools of art, painters who have unique perceptions of reality even within their own school. All of the painters could paint the same scene--a field of flowers, for example--and all the paintings would be different in some way. The interpretations of the poem presented on this page are certainly not definitive or absolute. They are only one person's interpretation of what the author presents." ( Symbolism of the light shining, fancy costumes and everybody playing a role in the first stanza it seems as if you the reader are being sucked into a play. The assumption is that there is some form of entertainment accompanying the event of the day, which seems like it may be a funeral.

Works Cited

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