The Maker's Rage: Narrative in Stevens' Poetry

Abstract

OMMONLY CONSIDERED among the most abstract of twentieth- century American poets, Wallace has rarely been read for his narrative qualities. After an early attempt at conventional nar- rative with the mock epic Comedian as the Letter C, largely abandoned sustained plotting in favor of a renewed commitment to the lyric and contemplative modes that would dominate his career. The few critics who have considered the narrative features of Stevens' works— Daniel R. Schwarz in Narrative and Representation in the Poetry of Wallace and, more recently, Milton J. Bates in Stevens and Modernist Nar- rative—have emphasized his revisions of conventional narrative struc- tures. The storytelling impulse, they argue, far from being absent from Stevens' poetry, is rather redirected into an overarching intellectual quest narrative that informs both individual poems and the canon as a whole: if there are few traditional plots in Stevens, there is nonetheless an ongoing investment in an extended Kunstlerroman that rivals the journey of the novelistic hero. Citing Roman Jakobson's distinction between the metaphoric and metonymic poles, Bates adds that Stevens' long poems es- tablish covert narrative sequences by replacing the metonymic figuration normally associated with realist prose with an equivalent metaphoric or- der, a gesture he identifies with prevailing trends in modernist narrative. 1 Yet, from the rewriting of the biblical story of Susanna in Peter Quince at the Clavier to the tropical voyage of canto XXIX of An Ordinary Eve- ning in New Haven, also constructs a number of narratives that follow more traditional patterns of plotting and characterization. In this article, I will discuss several such narrative poems, considering the rea- sons behind Stevens' decision periodically to utilize conventional plots and how that choice informs our understanding of his larger aesthetic journey.