About This Course About David Lavery Texts Seminarians Course Requirements
Power Points Agenda
Quick Links: Stevens on the Web Stevens Photos Wallace Stevens Wiki Stevens
Bibliography Stevens Book Covers A Wallace Stevens Timeline Stevens' Hartford
Benjamin Lee Whorf Charles Ives
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Office: PH 316 | Office Hours: M and W 9-11 am; 1-3 pm; T and Th 9-11; 1-4 pm | E-mail:
david.lavery@gmail.com | Office Phone/Voice-Mail: 615-898-5648 | Home Page:
http://davidlavery.net/
Dr. David Lavery is Director of Graduate Studies and Professor in the English Department at
Middle Tennessee State University (1993- ). The recipient of the University's 2006 Distinguished
Research Award, he is the author of over one hundred and fifty published essays, chapters, and
reviews and the author / co-author / editor / co-editor of twenty-one books, including Joss Whedon, A
Creative Portrait: From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Avengers, TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial
Road Map of Supernatural, The Essential Cult Television Reader, and The Essential Sopranos
Reader. The co-convener of international conferences on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the work of
Joss Whedon and The Sopranos; co-founder of the Whedon Studies Association and its journal
Slayage and founding editor of Critical Studies in Television, he has lectured around the world on
the subject of television (Australia, Turkey, the UK, Portugal, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany),
been a guest/source for the BBC, NPR, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The New York
Times, A Folha de Sao Paulo (Brazil), Publica (Portugal), Information (Netherlands), AP, The
Toronto Star, USA Today, and from 2006-2008 taught film and television at Brunel University in
London. He is currently working on a book entitled: “Like Light”: Wallace Stevens' Creative Work.
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Required Texts
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Optional Text
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Voices & Visions Home
Elizabeth Bishop | Hart Crane | Emily Dickinson | T. S. Eliot | Robert
Frost | Langston Hughes | Robert Lowell | Marianne Moore | Sylvia
Plath | Ezra Pound | Wallace Stevens | Walt Whitman | William Carlos
Williams
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
About This Course
When I first taught this seminar in the summer of 1994, I thought of it as a "full immersion" approach to Wallace
Stevens (1879-1955), one of the most difficult and demanding poets imaginable and now considered to be one of
the major poets in English of the 20th Century. In a new, radical approach to acquiring a foreign language
(pioneered, I believe, by Middlebury College in Vermont), students were locked in a dorm for a set period of time
and required to "immerse" themselves completely in the language they sought to acquire, giving up English,
plunging, sink or swim, into Spanish, French, German, etc. To learn to read Stevens, I theorized, we would need
to approach his masterful poetry as a kind of foreign language. We will use a similar approach this semester.
Each seminarian earned a diploma certifying his/her fluency at the end of the course. Go here to see a list of
previous seminarians.
In this semester's reincarnation, we will (1) immerse ourselves in Stevens' poetry and prose; (2) read/perform
Stuart Flack's wonderful play about an imaginary meeting between the poet and composer Charles Ives, like
Stevens, a Connecticut resident, insurance executive, and quintessential modernist (an encounter which takes us
behind the scenes of the always very private Stevens' home and marriage); (3) examine Stevens' life and work in
relation to Ives' music and, as well, the "linguistic relativity" of his fellow Hartford employee, Benjamin Lee
Whorf; (4) situate Stevens in the context of 20th Century American poetry by watching all of the PBS Voices and
Visions documentaries on American poetry (all now available online); (5) contextualize Stevens' thinking and
artistic achievement by considering each week a comparable/exemplary philosopher and painter.
Our text will be the Kermode/Richardson edited Library of America collection Stevens: Collected Poetry & Prose,
which makes virtually everything we will need to read available in one volume.
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Seminarians
* William Brown * Dawn Copeland * Khristeena Lute
* Taffy O'Neal * Sarah Rivas
* Aaron Shapiro * Greta Smith * Dennis Wise
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Course Requirements
Reading: Please read all the poems (readings) listed on the syllabus before each class meeting.
Viewing: Please watch each week’s assigned Voices and Visions film (see the links for online viewing above)
before class.
Writing: Completion of any two the following: [A] a study of a single Stevens poem; [B] a comparison/contrast of
a Stevens poem and a painting by one of the painters on the syllabus (or another approved by me); [C] a study of
a theme/issue/technique, etc. involving multiple Stevens poems; [D] an examination of Stevens' poetry in the
broader context of modern culture: literature / art / painting / music / the movies / philosophy / poetry / history /
linguistics / geography; or (more specifically) Stevens and Whorf / Stevens & Ives / Stevens & politics ; Stevens &
Impressionism; Stevens & Imagism; Stevens & modernism; Stevens and Florida; Stevens & Bishop / Crane /
Dickinson / Eliot / Hughes / Plath / Whitman / Lowell / Pound / Williams / Moore / Frost; [E] a book review of one
of the books listed here.
Nota bene: one of these—your choice of A, B, C, D, E—will be a critical essay [CE] written from your own
perspective and need not rely on secondary sources. Weight—30% of grade. The other [SP]—your choice of A,
B, C, D—will be a source paper, incorporating the ideas and insights of other critics and scholars. Weight—50%
of grade. Feel free to consult with me about your choice of topic(s). Length: CE—1500 words (MA
students)/2,000 words (PhD students); SP—2000 words (M.A. students/4,000 words (Ph.D. students). Due: One—
your choice—by midnight, March 21; a second—your choice—by midnight, May 1. Submit via the appropriate
D2L drop boxes.
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Class Participation: [A] daily involvement in class discussion; [B] contributions to a Wallace
Stevens Wiki [Go here to learn more. Your WSW assignments are here: Brown | Copeland | Lute
| O’Neal | Rivas | Shapiro | Smith | Wise | Lavery]; [C] a 15 minute presentation on a Voices and
Visions film (e-mail me ASAP your first choice; learn more about my expectations here). [D] other
presentations as assigned. | Weight—20% of grade.
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Power Points
* Weeks: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 American Life and Casualty
Benjamin Lee Whorf Charles Ives Stevens' Hartford * Painters: Cezanne | Chagall | Dufy |
Klee | Magritte | Matisse | Miro | Monet | Picasso | Rousseau | Seurat | Soutine | Van Gogh *
Philosophers: Bergson | Berkeley | Descartes | Heidegger | Hume | James | Kant | Kierkegaard
| Lao-Tzu | Merleau-Ponty | Plato | Wittgenstein * Poets: Bishop | Crane | Dickinson | Eliot |
Frost | Hughes | Lowell | Plath | Pound | Whitman | Williams * Schools/Concepts, etc.: The
Beat Movement | The French Symbolists | Imagism | The New Critics | The New York School of
Poets | Reflections on Poetry | The Geneva School
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Agenda
Class Meeting | Subject/Reading Assignments (pages in SCPP) | Requirements Due
[Links on the names of philosophers are to entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Links on the names of painters take you to entries in Mark Harden's Artchive. Links on the names of
composers (unless otherwise specified) lead to San Francisco Classical Voice.]
Week 1 | January 22 | Introduction | Wallace Stevens: Man Made Out of Words (videotape from the PBS Voices
and Visions series); Adagia 900 | Power Points: Syllabus | Week 1
Week 2 | January 29 | Domination of Black 7; The Snow Man 8; Le Monocle de Mon Oncle 10; Metaphors of a
Magnifico 15; The Doctor of Geneva 19; On the Surface of Things 45; A High Toned Old Christian Woman 47; The
Place of the Solitaires 47; The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician 49; The Emperor of Ice Cream 50 | Major
Poem: The Comedian as the Letter C 22 | Philosopher of the Week: William James | Painter of the Week: Paul
Cezanne | Composer of the Week: Richard Wagner | Voices and Visions Film: Walt Whitman (1819-1892) |
Power Point: Week 2
Week 3 | February 5 | Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock 52; Six Significant Landscapes 58; Anecdote of the Jar 60;
Life is Motion 65; Tattoo 64; To the One of Fictive Music 70; Peter Quince at the Clavier 72; Thirteen Ways of
Looking at a Blackbird 74; The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad 81; Sea Surface Full of Clouds 82; The Idea of Order at
Key West 105; The Sun This March 108; Evening Without Angels 111 | Major Poem: Sunday Morning 53 |
Philosopher of the Week: Plato | Painter of the Week: Claude Monet | Composer of the Week: Gustav
Mahler | Voices and Visions Film: Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) | Power Point: Week 3
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Agenda
Class Meeting | Subject/Reading Assignments (pages in SCPP) | Requirements Due
Week 4 | February 12 | Poetry Is a Destructive Force 178; The Poems of Our Climate 179; Study of Two Pears
180; The Glass of Water 181; The Man on the Dump 184; The Latest Freed Man 187; Anything is Beautiful If
You Say It Is 191; Connoisseur of Chaos 184; The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man 205; Of Modern Poetry 218;
Woman Looking at a Vase of Flowers 223; | Major Poem: The Man with the Blue Guitar 135 | Philosopher
of the Week: Rene Descartes | Painter of the Week: Pablo Picasso | Composer of the Week: Claude
Debussy | Voices and Visions Film: Robert Frost (1874-1963) [Presentation by Dennis Wise] | Power
Point: Week 4
Week 5 | February 19 | Mrs. Alfred Uruguay 225; Aside on an Oboe 226; Extracts from Addresses to the
Academy of Fine Ideas 227; Phosphor Reading by His Own Light 240; The Motive for Metaphor 257; So-and-So
Reclining on Her Couch 262; Chocorua to Its Neighbor 263; Crude Foyer 270; The Creations of Sound 274; Less
and Less Human, O Savage Spirit 288; The Pure Good of Theory 289; A Word with José Rodriguez-Feo 292 |
Philosopher of the Week: George Berkeley | Painter of the Week: Vincent Van Gogh | Composer of the
Week: Jean Sibelius | Voices and Visions Film: William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) [Presentation by
Khristeena Lute] | Power Point: Week 5 | Whorf
Week 6 | February 26 | Wallace Stevens and Benjamin Lee Whorf | Language, Thought, and Reality
[selections TBA]; "Imagination and Insurance: Wallace Stevens and Benjamin Lee Whorf at the Hartford"; "The
Mind of Benjamin Lee Whorf" Language, Thought, and Reality (134-270) | Philosopher of the Week: David
Hume | Painter of the Week: Georges Seurat | Composer of the Week: Erik Satie | Voices and Visions
Film: Ezra Pound (1885-1972) | Power Point: Week 6
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Agenda
Class Meeting | Subject/Reading Assignments (pages in SCPP) | Requirements Due
Week 7 | March 5 | Paisant Chronicle 283; Description without Place 296; Man Carrying Thing 306; A
Completely New Set of Objects 307; Men Made Out of Words 309; Thinking of a Relation Between the Images of
Metaphors 310; Chaos in Motion and Not in Motion 311; Credences of Summer 322 | Major Poem: Esthétique
du Mal 277 | Philosopher of the Week: Immanuel Kant | Painter of the Week: Henri Matisse | Composer
of the Week: Arnold Schoenberg [Wikipedia] | Voices and Visions Film: Marianne Moore (1887-1972)
[Presentation by Sarah Rivas] | Power Point: Week 7
March 10-15 Spring Break
Week 8 | March 19 | The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination 637-751 | Philosopher of
the Week: Soren Kierkegaard | Painter of the Week: Raoul Dufy | Composer of the Week: Maurice Ravel |
Voices and Visions Film: T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) [Presentation by Will Brown] | Power Point: Week 8 |
March 21: First Essay Due
Week 9 | March 26 | Major Poem: Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction 329 | Philosopher of the Week:
Friedrich Nietzsche | Painter of the Week: Paul Klee | Composer of the Week: Béla Bartók | Voices and
Visions Film: Hart Crane (1899-1932) [Presentation by Aaron Shapiro] | Power Point: Week 9
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Agenda
Class Meeting | Subject/Reading Assignments (pages in SCPP) | Requirements Due
Week 10 | April 2 | Charles Ives | American Life and Casualty performed in class | Philosopher of
the Week: Henri Bergson | Painter of the Week: Edward Hopper | Composer of the Week: Ives | Voices
and Visions Film: Langston Hughes (1902-1967) [Presentation by Dawn Copeland] | Power Points:
Week 10 | American Life and Casualty | Ives
Week 11 | April 9 | Large Red Man Reading 365; This Solitude of Cataracts 366; The Ultimate Poem is
Abstract 369; The Owl in the Sarcophagus 371; Saint John and the Back-Ache 375; A Primitive Like an Orb 377;
Metaphor as Degeneration 381; What We See is What We Think 392; Angel Surrounded by Paysans 423 |
Major Poem: The Auroras of Autumn 355 | Philosopher of the Week: George Santayana | Painter of the
Week: Marc Chagall | Composer of the Week: Igor Stravinsky | Voices and Visions Film: Elizabeth Bishop
(1911-1979) [Presentation by Taffy O’Neal] | Power Point: Week 11
Week 12 | April 16 | The Plain Sense of Things 428; Vacancy in the Park 434; The Poem That Took the Place
of a Mountain 435; Two Illustrations That the World is What You Make of It 435; Prologues to What is Possible
437; Looking Across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly 439; The World as Meditation 441 | Major Poem:
An Ordinary Evening in New Haven 399 Philosopher of the Week: Martin Heidegger | Painter of the
Week: Chaim Soutine | Composer of the Week: George Gershwin | Voices and Visions Film: Robert Lowell
(1917-1977) | Power Points: Week 12
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens
Agenda
Class Meeting | Subject/Reading Assignments (pages in SCPP) | Requirements Due
Week 13 | April 23 | Uncollected Prose, Notebooks, Journals and Letters 755 | Philosopher of the Week:
Ludwig Wittgenstein | Painter of the Week: Joan Miro | Composer of the Week: Aaron Copland | Voices
and Visions Film: Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) [Presentation by Greta Smith] | Power Point: Week 13
Week 14 | April 30 | Long and Sluggish Lines 442; A Quiet Normal Life 443; Final Soliloquy of the Interior
Paramour 444; The Planet on the Table 450; The River of Rivers in Connecticut 451; Not Ideas About the Thing
But the Thing Itself 451; A Clear Day and No Memories 475; Of Mere Being 476; First Warmth 597; As You
Leave the Room 597 | Major Poem: The Rock 445 | Philosopher of the Week: Maurice Merleau-Ponty |
Painter of the Week: Rene Magritte | Composer of the Week: Samuel Barber | Power Point: Week 14 |
May 1: Second Essay Due
Week 15 | May 7 [Finals Week Meeting]
Major American Writers: Wallace Stevens