Nuances of a Theme by Williams
Encyclopedia
"Nuances of a Theme by Williams" is a poem from Wallace Stevens
's first book of poetry,
Harmonium
.
The italicized first lines make up a poem, "El Hombre", by Stevens' modernist contemporary William Carlos Williams
. The poem was first published in Little Review 5 (1918)
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...
.
| Nuances of a Theme by Williams
Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze that reflects neither my face nor any inner part of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing. Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses you in its own light. Be not chimera of morning, Half-man, half-star. Be not an intelligence, Like a widow's bird Or an old horse. |
The italicized first lines make up a poem, "El Hombre", by Stevens' modernist contemporary William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
. The poem was first published in Little Review 5 (1918)