20. Wallace Stevens (cont.)

Modern Poetry (ENGL 310) with Langdon Hammer

Marie Borroff guest-lectures on Wallace Stevens's late seasonal poem, "The Auroras of Autumn." The poem is considered sequentially, beginning with Stevens's mythology of the three serpents in section one and concluding with an examination of the beauty of the world, as Stevens conceives of it, in sections eight through ten. The poet's optimism and fundamental belief in the power of imagination to divest death of its power is repeatedly demonstrated. The poem's final sections are shown to exemplify characteristically Stevensian conceptions of peace and happiness in the face of death.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction
02:10 - Chapter 2. Wallace Stevens Poem: "Gubbinal"
06:34 - Chapter 3. Wallace Stevens Volume: The Auroras of Autumn

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu

This course was recorded in Spring 2007.