architecture i-v, by wallace stevens

i
what manner of building shall we build?
let us design a chastel de chastete.
de pensee....
never cease to deploy the structure.
keep the laborers shouldering plinths.
pass the whole of life earing the clink of the
chisels of the stone-cutters cutting the stones.

ii
in this house, what manner of utterance shall there be?
what heavenly dithyramb
and cantilene?
what niggling forms of gargoyle patter?
of what shall the speech be,
in that splay of marble
and of obedient pillars?

iii
and how shall those come vested that come there?
in their ugly reminders?
or gaudy as tulips?
as they climb the stairs
to the group of Flor Coddling Hecuba?
as they climb the flights
to the closes
overlooking whole seasons?

iv
let us build the building of light.
push up the towers
to the cock-tops.
these are the pointings of our edifice,
whish, like a gorgeous palm,
shall tuft the commonplace.
these are the window-sill
on which the quiet moonlight lies.

v
how shall we hew the sun,
split and make blocks,
to build a ruddy palace?
how carve the violet moon
to set in nicks?
let us fix portals, east and west,
abhorring green-blue north and blue-green south.
our chiefest dome a demoiselle of gold.
pierce the interior with pouring shafts,
in diverse chambers.
pierce, too, with buttresses of coral air
and purple timbers,
various argentines,
embossings of the sky.

(please continue reading this poem's final two stanzas in some handy volume)

(from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose, pp. 66-67)

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This poem seems to set out Wallace Stevens' vision for his poetry: a lifelong activity with the goal of creating an edifice, an opus of work, just as the medieval artisans spent lifetime(s) creating the cathedrals of europe.  We see many motifs that we will revisit in his work: the palm, the colors (violet, coral, purple, ruddy, etc), the crystals (stones), the spires and various motifs of ascension.

Comments

[Lori Witzel]

I really appreciate your insights...me, I always responded from a gut level to his imagery. There's a word I can't seem to recall for encrusted baroque layers like piled barnacles...his textures and colors slide under me like an enscorcelled carpet ready for a midnight ride.

[karen]

lori,

i hope you remember that word...

i love your phrase: "an enscorcelled carpet ready for a midnight ride." Yes!

he also makes it clear in this poem that he wants to 'think' : ' de pensee...keep the laborers shouldering plints, pass the whole life...'

and he wants to *hear* the word-music 'earing the clink of the stone-cutters cutting the stones.'

another motif that recurs: cocks, although here one might think it's a play on clock-tops as in clock-towers. he was very subtle that way.

[Lori Witzel]

Corruscated...I think that's the word I was looking for, but my Compact OED is in a box somewheres and the Internet is not offering a definition.

Mr. Stevens gives me hope for lots of reasons. He wrote these brilliant things while working a fairly high-level day job. He challenges me (yes, to think and listen.) Thanks for the pointing to more of his full spectrum.

[karen]

hi lori,

yes, he gives me hope in that way too. that's why i'm doing this weblog.

you and stevens share a love of the OED. He found many of his more obscure and exotic words there. to me he represents the pure essence of 'the poet.' The fact that he worked the day job as lawyer for an insurance company, 'composed' while walking to work, rather than being of the leisured class, is very inspiring.

[generic cialis]

Interesting poem thanks, sounds very sad on my guess, this remember me on the tv show dr house when he took away the bandage of a patient eyes and he ask her what did you see, and she answer looking at him saying, you look sad :S