Wallace Stevens’ "The Man With The Blue Guitar" is one of his most famous long poems. For a better understanding of the poem, it is necessary to examine the art forms of Modernism that influenced him while composing this poem and to have a look at his poetic development. Only then, it becomes clear that this poem is typically modern and that at the same time Stevens’ own way of poetic composition cannot be compared to any other poet of Modernism. This is the aim of this essay.
Wallace Stevens already published his first poetic work during his College years at Harvard University (1897-1900). However, it took him many years until he could contribute himself fully to poetry. The first major collections of poetry, Harmonium, came out in 1923 when Stevens was 44 years old. Only in times of financial security, Stevens had a leading position in an insurance company did he reach his highest poetic creativity.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Wallace Stevens and American Modernism
3. “The Man With The Blue Guitar”
3.1. Modern art in “The Man With The Blue Guitar”
3.2. Surrealism in “The Man With The Blue Guitar”
4. Conclusion
Objectives and Themes
This academic paper examines the modernist composition of Wallace Stevens' poem "The Man With The Blue Guitar," exploring how his unique poetic style intersects with contemporary art movements such as Cubism and Surrealism.
- The evolution of Wallace Stevens' poetic style within the context of American Modernism.
- The influence of visual arts—specifically Cubist paintings—on the structure and imagery of the poem.
- The role of Surrealist aesthetics and the "logic of the dream" in shaping Stevens' creative process.
- The relationship between the artist, the act of perception, and the transformation of reality through imagination.
Excerpt from the Book
3.1. Modern art in “The Man With The Blue Guitar”
The guitar player, introduced in the first section in the third person as “The Man bent over his guitar” is asked by his audience to play “things exactly as they are”, but he cannot fulfil the expectations of his audience, and replies that “Things as they are/ are changed upon the blue guitar.” (I) Since the mass audience of the guitar player wants things as they are, he has to play for another audience.
In fact, modernist poets did not want to publish their work in mass magazines for the mass audience, they wanted only very few readers. Picasso’s The Old Guitarist shows a guitar player who is just skin and bones almost dead, bent over his guitar, as if the guitar was the only thing that kept him alive. It is a painting of Picasso’s blue period, characterized by many melancholic paintings. But at the same time, it is the guitar playing that deadens him, maybe because he does not play what the audience wants him to play. It is assumed that there is a connection between this painting and the Steven’s guitar player, and I agree with that. Especially the first two sections of the poem that describe the guitar player playing on his blue guitar remind of Picasso’s painting. The guitar is the only thing in the painting that is not blue. The clothes of the guitar player, his skin and the background are blue so that the guitar in Stevens’ Man With The Blue Guitar possibly takes over the colours that surround it on the painting The Old Guitarist. I believe that section IX is also connected to this painting because it again describes the blue colour that surrounds the guitar.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: This chapter introduces the poem as a masterpiece of Modernism and outlines the necessity of examining Stevens' poetic development and artistic influences to understand his unique composition.
2. Wallace Stevens and American Modernism: This chapter provides a biographical overview of Stevens, his career in the insurance industry, and his engagement with the Avant-Garde movement, specifically Imagism and Cubism.
3. “The Man With The Blue Guitar”: This chapter analyzes the structure and content of the poem, focusing on the interplay between words and visual imagery, and how Stevens departs from traditional narrative structures.
3.1. Modern art in “The Man With The Blue Guitar”: This chapter explores the connection between the poem and Cubism, particularly the parallels between Picasso's "The Old Guitarist" and the figure of the guitar player in the poem.
3.2. Surrealism in “The Man With The Blue Guitar”: This chapter discusses the influence of Surrealist theory, focusing on the union of dream and reality and how Stevens uses "imaginative meaning" to liberate the unconscious mind.
4. Conclusion: The final chapter synthesizes the arguments, asserting that while Stevens incorporates diverse Modernist influences, the poem's masterpiece status stems primarily from his lifelong habit of blending personal observation with unbridled imagination.
Keywords
Wallace Stevens, The Man With The Blue Guitar, American Modernism, Cubism, Surrealism, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Imagism, Poetic Composition, Art History, André Breton, Manifest of Surrealism, Imagination, Modern Poetry, Visual Arts.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this paper?
The paper examines how Wallace Stevens integrated techniques and theories from modernist art movements, specifically Cubism and Surrealism, into his poem "The Man With The Blue Guitar."
What are the core themes explored in the text?
The core themes include the relationship between poetry and painting, the role of the artist in society, the distinction between "things as they are" and imagined reality, and the modernist break from tradition.
What is the central research question?
The paper seeks to understand why "The Man With The Blue Guitar" is a distinctively modern composition and how Stevens' unique poetic methods differ from his contemporaries through his assimilation of various art forms.
Which methodology does the author employ?
The author uses a comparative literary analysis, linking specific sections of the poem to art-historical movements and comparing Stevens' techniques to the manifestos and visual works of figures like Duchamp, Picasso, and Dalí.
What topics are covered in the main body?
The main body details Stevens' personal and professional history, his exposure to the Armory Show, his adoption of Imagist principles, and a stanza-by-stanza analysis of the poem's relation to Cubist perspective and Surrealist dream-logic.
Which keywords best describe this research?
The research is best characterized by the intersection of Modernist poetry, inter-art analogies, the influence of the visual arts on literature, and the specific aesthetic theories of the early 20th century.
How does the poem relate to Picasso’s "The Old Guitarist"?
The author argues that the first sections of the poem directly reflect the melancholic imagery and color palette of Picasso's blue period, with the "blue guitar" acting as a symbol for the artistic process.
How does the paper differentiate Stevens from a traditional Surrealist?
The author notes that while Stevens uses Surrealist techniques like psychic automatism and dream-like imagery, he was not a member of the official movement, nor did he share the radical, drug-influenced preoccupations of many prominent Surrealists.
What significance is attributed to the "blue guitar"?
The blue guitar serves as a metaphor for the artist's tool, capable of transforming mundane reality into a subjective, imaginative experience that reflects the artist's internal mood.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Ljuba Kabzan (Autor:in), 2005, American Modernism. Wallace Stevens’ Modernist Composition of “The Man With The Blue Guitar”, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/967984
