Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
Encyclopedia
"Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" is a poem from Wallace Stevens
's first book of poetry, Harmonium
. It was first published in 1915, and it is in the public domain.
The poem allows the reader to linger over the possibility of colors, of strangeness, and of unusual dreams. Imagination that is absent from a mundane orderly life is represented, not by a dandified aesthete, but instead by a drunken sailor dreaming of catching tigers
in red weather. The poem itself shows that imagination has its own order, so the representation should be kept distinct from what it represents. Thus following one of the main facets necessary for modernist literature to function: that the object or idea being represented exists in and for itself, and only itself. On this reading the poem is not an indictment of middle-class values, though that is one interpretive option, but rather the "haunted house" of white night-gowns represents life without imagination.
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
's first book of poetry, Harmonium
Harmonium (poetry collection)
Harmonium is a book of poetry by U.S. poet Wallace Stevens. His first book, it was published in 1923 by Knopf in an edition of 1500 copies. He was in middle age at that time, forty-four years old. The collection comprises 85 poems, ranging in length from just a few lines to several hundred...
. It was first published in 1915, and it is in the public domain.
| Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
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The poem allows the reader to linger over the possibility of colors, of strangeness, and of unusual dreams. Imagination that is absent from a mundane orderly life is represented, not by a dandified aesthete, but instead by a drunken sailor dreaming of catching tigers
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
in red weather. The poem itself shows that imagination has its own order, so the representation should be kept distinct from what it represents. Thus following one of the main facets necessary for modernist literature to function: that the object or idea being represented exists in and for itself, and only itself. On this reading the poem is not an indictment of middle-class values, though that is one interpretive option, but rather the "haunted house" of white night-gowns represents life without imagination.