Notations of the wild : ecology in the poetry of Wallace Stevens PDF
Preview Notations of the wild : ecology in the poetry of Wallace Stevens
107217 pb cover 1 8/7/03, 6:42 PM ~~ NOTATIONS OF THE l~OTATIONS OF THE Ecology in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens Gyorgyi Voros UniversityofIowa Press ~ Iowa City UniversityofIowaPress,IowaCity52242 Copyright© 1997bytheUniversityofIowaPress Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica DesignbyRichardHendel Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedorusedinanyformorbyany means,electronicormechanical,includingphotocopyingandrecording, withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher.Allreasonablestepshave beentakentocontactcopyrightholdersofmaterialusedinthisbook.The publisherwouldbepleasedtomakesuitablearrangementswithanywhom ithasnotbeenpossibletoreach. Printedonacid-freepaper LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Voros,Gyorgyi Notationsofthewild:ecologyinthepoetryofWallaceStevens/ byGyorgyiVoros. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0-87745-57°-8 1. Stevens,Wallace, 1879-1955-Knowledge-Naturalhistory. 2. Wildernessareasinliterature. 3. Ecologyinliterature. 4. Nature inliterature. 1. Title. pS3537·T4753z83 1996 811'·S2-dc20 96-3°719 CIP 01 00 99 98 97 C 5 4 3 FOR MY PARENTS CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix ANote ontheTexts andAbbreviations xi Stevens's EarthyAnecdote A Prologue to WhatIsPossiblein RereadingStevens 1 I "ANature to Its NativesAll" Wallace Stevensin'the Landscape 21 of 2 "TheWestwardness Everything" Stevens'sKtaadn 37 3 "Notations ofthe Wild" The Caseforan EcologicalPoetic 64 4 AHouse Builtbyand for the Body NatureasHouse(hold) 87 S "The Genius ofthe Body, WhichIs OurWorld" Stevens'sSensorium 124 6 The Impersonal Person The Selfin the World / The Selfofthe World 147 Notes 167 Works Cited 185 IndexofWorks byWallace Stevens 191 Name Index 193 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Long ago and in another language, my parents, Laszlo and Jolan Voros, and my late grandmother Jolan Varga first lit and nursed the spark that has ever since blazed with the deep, consuming pleasures of reading and writing. For this, and for their lifelong love and support, bothmaterial and spiritual, I thankthem. I am gratefulto mymentors and teachers atthe Graduate School and lJniversity Center of the City University of New York who nurtured tJl1is manuscript through its earliest stages. Charles Molesworth offered generous advice, purposeful direction, and good humorin directing the dissertation thatlaid the groundworkfor this project.Joan Richardson's passion for and incisive readings ofStevens's life and poetry cleared my pathtoward Stevens, as did herhelpful commentaries onmywork. I re naainindebtedto HerbLeibowitz, mylongtimefriend, mentor, teacher, and best reader, for challenging me to meet the beauties of literature with a precise and lively critical language. Where I have succeeded, I blave him to thank. I would like to express appreciation to the poet Katherine Soniat, vvhosetintomotion theprocesswhichallowed thisworktoseethe light ofday. Rob Mercure helped make this workarealityin more ways than can be counted here, and I remain in his debt. I thank Gabriela Ibieta, early fellow traveler among books, for her steadfast support, scholarly example, and longand lovingfriendship. I extend warm thanks to those others close to me who each in some particular way has encouraged my life in Nature, my love ofliterature, and my faith in this work: my brothers Laszlo Voros Jr. and Andrew Voros and myfriendsJustinAskins, Irene Benjamin, Dianne Birch, Star IHack, Laura Clark, Debbie Cole, NancyCorey,Judith Gleason, LuAnn lCeener, Miles Orvell, and Simone Poirier-Bures. They have seen me through. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Hilbert Campbell, chair ofthe I~nglishDepartment atVirginia Tech, and Peter Graham and the Fac ultyBookPublishingCommitteefor theirconfidenceinthisprojectand torsecuringuniversityfunds toward its completion. Finally, many thanks to my friends and advisors at the University of IowaPress for theirsupportandwise counsel.
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