Abstract
This chapter brings together a variety of philosophical and neuroscientific perspectives to consider how Stevens’ poems and essays present what he calls reality – or the ‘cosmos’ – as radically dynamic and changeable and always in a state of flux. The chapter shifts from the early 20th century philosophy of Henri Bergson, to modernist aesthetics, and most significantly to the philosophy of mind of the biologist Gerald Edelman, in order to situate the thought of Stevens within a shifting historical context. Through this engagement with science, and close readings of a range of poems that take in Stevens’ whole career, the chapter argues for shared forms of power among scientific knowledge and poetic knowledge.
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