the place of the solitaires, by wallace stevens

let the place of the solitaires
be a place of perpetual undulation.

whether it be in mid-sea
on the dark, green water-wheel,
or on the beaches,
there must be no cessation
of motion, or of the noise of motion,
the renewal of noise
and manifold continuation;
and most, of the motion of thought
and its restless iteration,

in the place of the solitaires,
which is to be a place of perpetual undulation.

(from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose, pp. 47-48)

*     *     *     *     *

The beauty of this poem needs no further comment.  The feeling of it is quite familiar, and the sense of it is very daoist.  The dao, or life, is a place of perpetual change; this is the meaning of the well-known yin-yang symbol.

In terms of scholars, Frank Doggett has some nice words: "For Stevens the self, the single pure center of being is subject to the one fundamental condition of all existence: its place is always in the flux.  The solitaire of self, whatever its physical location, is everywhere a center in motion in the restless play of iteration and modification in experience and in the ubiquitous wave action of the physical world." (pp.76-77, Stevens' Poetry of Thought)

I'm relating this poem to 'Of the Surface of Things' and his vision of the world as three hills and a cloud, or to 'Fabliau of Florida,': 'there will never be an end / to this droning of the surf.'  I remember as a young woman, who grew up within less than a half day's drive of the ocean, noticing the similarities between fields of grain rippling in the breeze, grassy hills undulating along the side of road, and the waves of the familiar sea.  Later, I noticed the wave-like habit of the desert's sage, and felt I'd come home to a different ocean.

Thomas Lombardi writes: "'Solitaires' possesses a double intent.  Aside from its primary meaning ('solitary'), 'Solitaires' also pertains, naturally, to a single diamond or gem, set alone.  That Stevens employs the plural - 'solitaires' - captures a series of gemlike, luminous, ephiphanic moments, diamonds resembling the 'crystal' of poetry.  'Let the place of the solitaires / Be a place of perpetual undulations' seems eschatological in vision and associated with the reconciliation of art and reality: the 'crystal' and the 'mundo.'  The (poem) weaves together a sense of the undulating movement of the sea with the immutable undulation of hills. 

"Hilltops invariably induced (for Stevens) the reconciliation of crystal and mundo, the search for peace, the love of solitude.  From the vantagepoint of a hilltop, Stevens can view the changing sea, so much like rolling hills in the country.  In several instances,  his association of hills with the sea realizes the eventual confluence of these separate realities.  Stevens expressed an early identification of hill and sea in a poem entitled 'Night Song', where he stands 'upon the hills' and wonders whether the 'humming through the trees' is the sound of the sea.'  One reality resembles and subsequently evokes the other." (pp.71-72, WS & the Pennsylvania Keystone.)

Lombardi goes on to reflect that there was a hilly area with sand dunes, near Reading (nearer to Pricetown), that Stevens explored with a childhood buddy who believed it was the remnant of an ancient inland sea, and the author wonders if these related images fused for Stevens at that early stage of his development.  He notes that the hill-sea conflation occurs again in "Two Versions of the Same Poem."

Comments

[models in london]

Such a nice read. I am so inspired at the moment.