ploughing on sunday, by wallace stevens

The white cock’s tail
Tosses in the wind.
The turkey-cock’s tail
Glitters in the sun.

Water in the fields.
The wind pours down.
The feathers flare
And bluster in the wind.

Remus, blow your horn!
I’m ploughing on Sunday,
Ploughing North America.
Blow your horn!

Tum-ti-tum,
Ti-tum-tum-tum!
The turkey-cock’s tail
Spreads to the sun.

The white cock’s tail
Streams to the moon.
Water in the fields.
The wind pours down.

(from, Stevens Collected Poetry & Prose, p. 16)

* * * *

As we all know, in the Christian tradition, manual labor, such as ploughing, was forbidden on Sundays. What we may not know, is that sexual intercourse, sometimes referred to euphemistically as ‘ploughing,’ was also forbidden on Sundays. As usual, Stevens has found a trope that works in more than one way. A further connotation of 'ploughing' here refers to the fertile activity of the poet. Re-read the poem with the generative usage of ‘ploughing’ in mind.

During the dark ages Christian bishops attempted to corral the remaining vestiges of paganism into the Christan fold, where, from the pulpit, they could safely be purged from daily life. “Paganism, for (Caesarius of Arles, bishop 502-542 AD), was not a set of independent practices, shimmering still with the allure of a physical world shot through with mysterious, non-Christian powers. Rather paganism was presented as being no more than a fragmented collection of ‘survivals’ – ‘sacrilegious habits,’ and inert ‘customs,’ inadvertently brought into the Church on the feet of so many average believers. Caesarius did not mince words on those who indulged in such practices. To fall back into pagan ways was, quite frankly, to lack grooming. It was to behave like rustici, boorish peasants, devoid of reason, unamenable to culture, driven to passion and, so, especially prone to collude with the earthly errors of the past. To make love on Sundays, was to act no better than a peasant. The pruning of rusticitas among baptized Christians, and not the eradication of paganism itself, was the proper object of a bishop’s pastoral care.” (Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, pp. 99-100) The bishops, at this stage of history, wanted to control society, and to expunge all residuums of paganism from it. They preached for whole days to this end. It was a very powerful phase in the formation of european culture, and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that Stevens was aware of it. His library was disposed of, so we'll never be able to re-trace his reading, but many things were common knowledge in his day, that no longer are.

“Ploughing North America” refers to the fact that Stevens belongs to the New World; he is an American poet, and as such, he has made a break with the traditions of Europe and the continental past. Let 'the Bishop of Arles' take a hike. He (Stevens) will be 'ploughing north america' - on sunday, no less. He will be exploring the poetic ground here, in this new, raw place, America; turning over virgin soil. Stevens is 'the virile poet.' This poem declares these facts with the rhythm of tom-toms.

As usual Stevens balances heaven and earth, imagination and reality. ‘The turkey-cock’s tail/Spreads to the sun’ is a celebration of the earth and its material beauty. This verse is recited to the beat of the drum, full of passion and ‘the verve of earth’.

‘The white cock’s tail/Streams to the moon.’ Imagination. And it is at that point that inspiration flows, ‘The wind pours down.’

The inclusion of 'Sunday' undoubtedly signifies more than one thing; it is the word/occasion for making clear that there is a 'break' with Europe and its traditions, and it indicates that part of his poetic exploration will be spiritual, though not strongly allied with the perspective of the Christian tradition. Stevens is a kind of 'new pagan', someone who finds 'God' in Nature, but is coming from a rootstock in Christianity. Or perhaps more accurately, he might be called a 'neo-Christian,' an intellectual contemporary of Lewis, Barfield, Tolkien, Griffiths, and other influential christians who went through school at Oxford at the beginning of the twentieth century, during that period of intense intellectual ferment and new physics, and who had strong ties to nature and interests in pre-christian or non-christian cultures (eg China, Japan, India) and cultural residues (European 'pagan' traditions). To me Stevens seems separate from traditional christian religiosity, but certainly not entirely free from involvement with it. It's a process that I think is still current, culturally speaking.

On the other hand, the concept of 'ploughing on sunday' may simply have been Stevens' cocky way of saying, 'I'm an iconoclast;' that he would not be a respector of 'sacred cows.' Just as the christian iconoclasts merrily knocked the heads off the statues of Athena and Demeter, and cut down the massive sacred oaks, so would he, Stevens, behave towards european poetic conventions and heroes.

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