Poems from The Auroras of Autumn: “The Novel,” “Study of Images I,” and “Study of Images II” Charles Altieri, Edward Ragg, Massimo Bacigalupo, Bart Eeckhout, Lisa Goldfarb, Gül Bilge Han, Glen MacLeod, Rachel Malkin, Maureen N. McLane, Tony Sharpe, and Juliette Utard PREFATORY NOTE: The transcript of this fifth seminar, which took place on June 21, 2017, in Bogliasco, Italy, uses the following abbreviations: CA (Charles Altieri, University of California, Berkeley), ER (Edward Ragg, Beijing), MB (Massimo Bacigalupo, University of Genoa), BE (Bart Eeckhout, University of Antwerp & Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study), LG (Lisa Goldfarb, Gallatin School, New York University), GH (Gül Bilge Han, Stockholm University), GM (Glen MacLeod, University of Connecticut), RM (Rachel Malkin, University of Oxford), MM (Maureen N. McLane, New York University), TS (Tony Sharpe, Lancaster University), JU (Juliette Utard, Sorbonne University & CNRS). The transcript was heavily edited for readability and circulated among participants for fine-tuning; it thus reproduces the dynamic of exchange without in any way striving to be literal. Readers who come upon this material outside the special issue to which it belongs are advised to read the editorial introduction for an account of the rationale behind the following discussion. Like an Epistolary Novel about Homelessness ER: Before I read the first poem in this session, “The Novel,” I thought it might be worth saying a few words about The Auroras of Autumn in general. We haven’t always discussed the books in which poems appeared, though yesterday we debated how “Parochial Theme” fits into Parts of a World.1 The Auroras of Autumn, as you’re aware, has had a slightly checkered history in terms of its reception. Randall Jarrell, in particular, was critical of Stevens’s supposedly icy poems that he charged with being inhuman. In one of his reviews, he suggested these poems would be sailing above our heads for centuries—I’m paraphrasing. Despite having some very strong poems in it, the volume has been denounced by several critics [End Page 92] as negatively abstract. Maybe “The Novel” goes against the grain of that thinking? But we can talk about The Auroras of Autumn as we investigate the poems. I’ll begin by reading the poem and providing some context, including José Rodríguez Feo’s letter that was reproduced partly in a footnote in Letters (L 617) and then completely in Secretaries of the Moon (133). Some of you will already be familiar with that context, but I’ll try to offer a few notes that might be helpful. The crows are flying above the foyer of summer.The winds batter it. The water curls. The leavesReturn to their original illusion. The sun stands like a Spaniard as he departs,Stepping from the foyer of summer into thatOf the past, the rodomontadean emptiness. Mother was afraid I should freeze in the Parisian hotels.She had heard of the fate of an Argentine writer. At night,He would go to bed, cover himself with blankets— Protruding from the pile of wool, a hand,In a black glove, holds a novel by Camus. She beggedThat I stay away. These are the words of José . . . He is sitting by the fidgets of a fire,The first red of red winter, winter-red,The late, least foyer in a qualm of cold. How tranquil it was at vividest Varadero,While the water kept running through the mouth of the speaker,Saying: Olalla blanca en el blanco, Lol-lolling the endlessness of poetry.But here tranquillity is what one thinks.The fire burns as the novel taught it how. The mirror melts and moulds itself and movesAnd catches from nowhere brightly-burning breath.It blows a glassy brightness on the fire And makes flame flame and makes it bite the woodAnd bite the hard-bite, barking as it bites.The arrangement of the chairs is so and so, [End Page 93] Not as one would have arranged them for oneself,But in the style of the novel, its tracingOf an unfamiliar in the familiar room, A retrato that is strong because it is like,A second that grows first, a black...