"Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird" is a poem from
Wallace StevensWallace 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",...
' first book of poetry,
HarmoniumHarmonium 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 consists of thirteen short, separate poems, all of which mention
blackbirdsThe New World blackbirds consist of 26 species of icterid birds that share the name blackbird but do not correspond with a formal taxon...
in some way. Although inspired by
haiku' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
, none of the segments is actually haiku. It was first published in 1917, so it is in the public domain.
| Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
|
Analysis
"Thirteen Ways..." may be interpreted as one of Stevens's exercises in perspectivism, and accordingly may be compared to such poems as
The Snow Man"The Snow Man" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. "The Snow Man" was first published in 1921 in the journal Poetry, volume 19, October 1921 and is in the public domain.-Overview:...
. The perspectives that matter for Stevens issue from the poet's imagination, which, somewhat in the spirit of philosophical
nominalismNominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
, can unify the world in various ways—for example, as a man and a woman, or a man and a woman and a blackbird (stanza IV). The artist's perspective may be shaped by what he attends to, as for instance on inflections or innuendoes—the blackbird whistling, or just after (stanza V).
The poem's haiku-like austerity is striking. Affinities to
imagismImagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets,...
and
cubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
are evident. Buttel proposes that the title "alludes humorously to the Cubists' practice of incorporating into unity and stasis a number of possible views of the subject observed over a span of time."
Sight is the dominant perceptual modality. The poems are almost cinematic, as though, in the first poem, a camera focused on a mountain panorama and then zoomed in to the blackbird and its roaming eye. There is reason to classify it as among the metaphysical poems in
Harmonium, because it creates an aura of mystery and intimates ineffable knowledge, perhaps conveying the message that 'death comes to all that lives.' But there are also grounds for classifying it as among the book's sensualist poems. "This group of poems is not meant to be a collection of epigrams or of ideas," Stevens remarks in one of his letters, "but of sensations." (See the main
HarmoniumHarmonium 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...
essay, the section "A flavorously original poetic personality," for the critic Joseph Fletcher's contrast between Stevens's metaphysical and sensuous poems.)
Cultural influence
The poem has been the inspiration for at least four pieces of music: "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", by
Lukas FossLukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...
,
Thirteen Ways, by
Thomas AlbertThomas Albert is an American composer and educator.♥-Biography:Thomas Albert attended the public schools of Lebanon, Pennsylvania and Wilson, North Carolina. In 1970, he received the degree A.B. from Atlantic Christian College , where he studied composition with William Duckworth...
;, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," by
Louise TalmaLouise Talma was a composer. She was raised in New York City and studied at the Institute of Musical Arts , 1922–1930, and received her bachelor of music degree from New York University and masters of arts degree from Columbia University...
for Tenor/Soprano, Oboe/Flute, and Piano, and
Blackbirds, for Flute and Bassoon, Gregory Youtz.
External links
The source of this article is
wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the
GFDL.
