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Comment 4 of 4, added on February 19th, 2008 at 6:04 PM.
It's highly likely Stevens was thinking of Cezanne in this poem. It's
important to note that Stevens named Cezanne as one of his favorite
painters, and a key artistic forebear. It's a late homage (like "To an Old
Philosopher in Rome") that expressed his affinity & gratitude to his
lifelong teacher & influence.
Kevin Brady from United States
Comment 3 of 4, added on April 6th, 2005 at 9:16 PM.
But Stevens hates subjective thought! He wrote (and his goal in life was )
to see without bias, to be able to see things as they really were. if he
was a Romantic writer this would be in character, but being a modernist
this does not seem like him. And isn't "solitary" a lonely word with a
negative connotation?
juniper from United States
Comment 2 of 4, added on February 21st, 2005 at 2:54 PM.
Clearly this is a poem about writing a poem, what has been called Ars
Poetica. The poet is aware of a mountain, seeing it or hearing of it,
perhaps, and he forms an image from which he writes a poem in his own way
of writing,ie., 'his voice.' Hereafter, the poem shows him not the actual
mountain, but the perception in his mind that drove him to write the poem.
It replaces the mountain in bringing him this vision. He shifted the vision
aound in his mind a bit from his original perception to make it right as a
poem, and to make the vision he had perfect. Maybe he even introducing
false 'facts' in the process. Now the poem itself exists both in his mind
and in a book. He need not see the poem any more, it, like the mountain,
points to the same image in his mind. Perhaps the poem he wrote is this
poem, we don't know. Having written it, he has found his voice and he is in
this sense, complete. Doesn't the poem itself, once analyzed, either like
this, or however, seem exactly right and beautiful?
James M. Lawther from United States
Comment 1 of 4, added on February 19th, 2005 at 6:45 AM.
I was reading this poem for the first time in 1994 on a trip in Africa. I
never understand it completely but after all these years the lines are
still in my head. There is something inside this poem but I can not explain
what it is....? I’m not a first English speaker and not a real poetry
reader. Maybe that will explain it. Any way Thanks
Wilamu from Netherlands
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It's highly likely Stevens was thinking of Cezanne in this poem. It's
important to note that Stevens named Cezanne as one of his favorite
painters, and a key artistic forebear. It's a late homage (like "To an Old
Philosopher in Rome") that expressed his affinity & gratitude to his
lifelong teacher & influence.
Kevin Brady from United States