A Study Of Irrationality In Wallace Stevens' Poetry

As a consequence of his abstract poetic language, abstruse thoughts, Wallace Stevens' poetry has been denounced by critics as nonsense, short of the rational ground. The present paper attempts to explore the rational sense with the seemingly irrational forms, re-evaluates the merits of the irrationality and provides the reader with an alternative approach to appreciating the unconventional beauty of Stevens' poetry.This thesis consists of three parts: 1. A comparative study of Chinese Taoism, Chinese classical poetry in terms of image writing and Stevens' poetic thoughts is proposed to offer a new access to comprehending Stevens' images. 2. Stevens' poems concerning metaphor creation are selected for figuring out the causes of the irrationality of his metaphor and the rational sense of it. 3. The most outstanding feature of Stevens' poetic language, which is also a riddle for the reader, is his spiral-like repetition. Our analysis about this semantic oddity aims to dig out the sensible meanings beneath the cover of the irrational. The conclusion of our study is that the attempt at logical explaining Stevens' poetry can never be achieved; and what is accessible for the reader is to place himself in the irrational context and appreciate the glamour it possesses.