Wallace Stevens - "The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm"
Last month I wrote about Wallace Stevens, and I indicated that his poetry was difficult and full of obscure allusions. Here is a simpler more meditative poem.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
The magic of this poem with its iterations and alliterations is that the reader is lulled into a kind of trance. We become the reader in the poem, identified with the book, the words and the summer night. There is no other reality than that which exists inside our heads and the book and the words become more real than so-called real life. Stevens uses simple words and repetitions of "quiet" and "calm" so that the poem is like a rhythmic chant. "The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind: The access of perfection to the page."
I really like the mood that this poem evokes. To be properly enjoyed, it should be read aloud so that you can hear the cadences and appreciate the music of the words. For example, listen to the sibilants at the end - "...itself is calm, itself is summer and night, itself is the reader ..." Some commentators have found echoes of Buddhist philosophy (which Stevens admired and studied) in this poem. It is true that there are multiple identifications of meaning - with consciousness, with truth, with summer and night, and with quiet and calm. In the end the reader is the poem and that is all you can say. Analysis tends to destroy its delicate fabric. As the Buddha liked to say: "It does not edify."
Next month I will be discussing Norman MacCaig (1910-1996), a Scottish poet who was extremely prolific and who often gave public readings of his work, in Edinburgh and elsewhere. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.
