A Search For Order: The Poetics Of Wallace Stevens

As a poet, Wallace Stevens lives in an age of disbelief, when the gods have come to an end. He takes up the challenge of the poet in the modern world to search for order in chaos. This thesis approaches Stevens and his poems in an attempt to study how Stevens employs his own imagination to seek order in chaos and delineates the true essence of life to help people live. It traces Stevens' theory of the imagination; explains his passion for order that people need in their lives; discovers Stevens' ideas of order and shows how and what Stevens does as a "connoisseur of chaos." This thesis is composed of four Parts, or eleven Chapters.The Introduction gives an overall impression about Stevens and his poetry. It reviews traditional studies on Wallace Stevens and his poetics by critics in Britain and America, pointing out that what they have done is far from enough and that it is valuable to analyze Wallace Stevens' ideas of order and his pursuit of order.In Part One, Chapter One discusses very briefly about Coleridge's theory of the mind with the purpose of tracing the origin of Stevens' theory of imagination. Chapter Two reviews the precious legacy Stevens inherited from Coleridge with the intention of creating a theoretic framework for the following analysis of Stevens' poetry. In spite of his respect for Coleridge, Stevens expresses his determination to discover a kind of new imagination which can press back the pressure of the new reality.In Part Two, Chapter Three examines the historical background of the age in which Stevens lives. In an age of disbelief, Stevens affirms the spirit that Nietzsche advocates, holding that "the death of one god is the death of all," and proposing that imagination is an activity of ordering the world. Chapter Four describes Stevens' desire and passion for order under the particular circumstance when gods dissolve like clouds and everything in the world is in chaos.