A Study Of The Irony Of Stevens's Wartime Poems

Wallace Stevens is a modern American poet in the 20 th century.His poetic achievements in poetry have been debated by critics.One of the arguments is whether there is something to be treasured in Stevens’ s exquisite and ingenious poetry.Taking Stevens’ s poetry in wartime as the research text,analyzing his ironic performance and the thoughts that permeate it,to prove for the positive side.During the first World War,Stevens was a new comer in the field of poetry.His poems at this stage were later included in his first collection of poems,Harmonium.During the Second World War,Stevens published his fourth poetry collection,Parts of a world,followed by a scattering of poems.Most of these poems retain the ironic rhetoric of the early poems,but in the poems in wartime,the ironic rhetoric hides the change of the poet’s position in the form of circuitous and graceful.Irony is regarded as a kind of escape in rhetoric,which means to change the meaning through extension or metaphor.It has been connected with Socrates’ s irony of drawing out others’ ignorance by claiming ignorance.After the research and demonstration of later generations,it has generated philosophy,and then formed a world view and an ideological method.A close reading of Stevens’ s poems in wartime reveals that irony is everywhere in that poems,reflecting the poet’s reflection on reality and self in many dimensions.Four sections are found in this thesis.The introduction elaborates the significance and background of the research of Stevens’ s poetry,explains the reasons for the topic,and then summarizes the domestic and foreign research results related to the topic,and briefly explains the writing ideas of the paper.The period of war is one of the peak periods of Stevens’ creation;during the second world war,Stevens had a obvious change of poetic concept.These two points constitute the reason why Stevens’ s poetry in wartime was chosen as the research text,and also the basis of developing ideas from irony.In the first chapter,from the poetic language of Stevens’ s poetry in wartime,the common ironic expressions are divided into three categories: the contrary of meaning,which is a basic feature of irony,refers to the opposite of literal meaning and implied meaning of poetry;the juxtaposition of contradictory words refers to the mutual exclusion of poetry due to the contradiction of words,which is contradictory in literal meaning;the pressure of context is a factor that the new critics emphasize in defining irony,which makes certain lines in the poem form multiple ironies with other lines.These ironic expressions contain all kinds of incongruous elements,which make Stevens’ s poetry ambiguous and polysemous.The second chapter analyzes the ironic nature of Stevens’ poetry in wartime by combining his poetics.Stevens inherited the idea of imagination from the romantic poets and created the poetic world by the power of imagination.When the realities of war impose mental stress,Stevens offers imaginative resistance,and his poem highlights the ignorance that underlies it.Ignorance enables the imagination to break free from the bondage of reality and enter into a seemingly detached ironic position.But man is not truly detached from everything.When Stevens realized that all the people around him were involved in the war,he wanted to withdraw from the isolated ironic position,and the doubt that couldn’t be eliminated made him try to regard fiction as real,so his intention of poetry creation changed from resistance to reality to conformity with reality.The third chapter,based on the emotional attitude which is regarded as the sharp edge of irony,explores the motivation of irony in Stevens’ s poetry in wartime.The difficulty of achieving trust and self-identity leads to existential anxiety,which corresponds to the recognition of possibility and the negation of order in ironic thinking.It is the poet’s urgent need to construct the world of poetry and make self creation because of his nowhere to put himself.The scruple of solipsism makes the poet face up to the outside world,and treat the reality full of fiction and metaphor with piety.Irony is a way for Stevens to keep a distance from solipsism while creating the world of poetry.The conclusion part summarizes the process of Stevens from focusing on self creation to focusing on reality,and clarifies that irony is the way to explore in Stevens’ s poetry in wartime,and finally leads Stevens to the American sublime in his later poetry.