Invective Against Swans
Encyclopedia
"Invective Against Swans" is a poem by Wallace Stevens
from his first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923).
saying that the chilly chariots of their bodies aren't suited to the heroic high flying that the soul undertakes.
and orgiastic — Dionysian — celebration of life. Mode 2 is the
malign and ironic observer. "Invective against Swans" is
classifiable as mode 2.
David Herd plausibly
locates the insult at an abstract level.
Arguably then, the poem is
insulting not swans and clouds but rather both clapped – out Victorian
diction and the philosophical/poetic impulse to give up on
nature, escaping it with the decrepit soul – vehicle, which figures in
Platonic and Christian conceptions of immortality and a transcendent
world. There is no reason to think that Stevens was comfortable in
any such vehicle. In 1902 the 22-year-old Stevens enters in his
journal, "An old argument with me is that the true religious force in
the world is not the church but the world itself." In Adagia he writes,
"After one has abandoned a belief in god, poetry is that essence which takes
its place as life's redemption." See also "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
".
neither escaping to Plato's world of Forms or Christian heaven, nor
relying on Victorian imagination.
"Invective against Swans" perhaps "shows" how to do that re-imagining.
Its allusion
to Paphos, the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite — embodiment of the
values of love, sex, and beauty — doesn't bespeak an attitude that
exults in slipping "the surly bonds of Earth". Instead it expresses
summer's end in a pungently non-Victorian way.
poem by British pilot John Magee
, whose Spitfire flies him, in the
poem "High Flight",
Magee's Spitfire and his "silent lifting mind" may not be dissimilar to the soul that takes flight in "Invective against Swans", and Stevens may be the malign and ironic observer of such bond-slipping, staying on Earth, sharing it with the crows whose dirt sullies statues, showing how
that poetic imagination can do better than to create such statues (to which "High Flyer" might be compared). It wouldn't transcend swans and clouds, larks and eagles; it would do better by them. Stevens' summer would be entirely different. (See for comparison the references to a widow's bird and an old horse in the concluding lines of Nuances of a Theme by Williams
.)
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",...
from his first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923).
| Invective against Swans The soul, O ganders, flies beyond the parks And far beyond the discords of the wind. A bronze rain from the sun descending marks The death of summer, which that time endures Like one who scrawls a listless testament Of golden quirks and Paphian caricatures, Bequeathing your white feathers to the moon And giving your bland motions to the air. Behold, already on the long parades The crows anoint the statues with their dirt. And the soul, O ganders, being lonely, flies Beyond your chilly chariots, to the skies. |
Overview
The poem seems to be an insult poem slamming swans, of all things, calling them ganders andsaying that the chilly chariots of their bodies aren't suited to the heroic high flying that the soul undertakes.
Stevens's ironic mode
It has been observed that Stevens has two modes. Mode 1 is a pureand orgiastic — Dionysian — celebration of life. Mode 2 is the
malign and ironic observer. "Invective against Swans" is
classifiable as mode 2.
David Herd plausibly
locates the insult at an abstract level.
One of the tasks
Modernist poets set themselves, probably the chief task,
was to resuscitate the all but clapped-out diction of
English-language poetry. It was for this reason Wallace Stevens wrote
his "Invective Against Swans"....Stevens wanted people to understand
that the language of poetry (as it was passed down to him by his
Victorian predecessors), with its over-dependence on swans and clouds,
was all but obsolete, capable only of expressing a certain poetical
mood — a mood of burdened over-sensitivity.http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1177980,00.html
Arguably then, the poem is
insulting not swans and clouds but rather both clapped – out Victorian
diction and the philosophical/poetic impulse to give up on
nature, escaping it with the decrepit soul – vehicle, which figures in
Platonic and Christian conceptions of immortality and a transcendent
world. There is no reason to think that Stevens was comfortable in
any such vehicle. In 1902 the 22-year-old Stevens enters in his
journal, "An old argument with me is that the true religious force in
the world is not the church but the world itself." In Adagia he writes,
"After one has abandoned a belief in god, poetry is that essence which takes
its place as life's redemption." See also "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
"A High-Toned Old Christian Woman" is a poem in Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium .Milton J. Bates interprets the poem as a "shocking version" of...
".
Re-imagining the natural world
The poem is perhaps saying that the poet should re-imagine the natural world,neither escaping to Plato's world of Forms or Christian heaven, nor
relying on Victorian imagination.
"Invective against Swans" perhaps "shows" how to do that re-imagining.
Its allusion
to Paphos, the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite — embodiment of the
values of love, sex, and beauty — doesn't bespeak an attitude that
exults in slipping "the surly bonds of Earth". Instead it expresses
summer's end in a pungently non-Victorian way.
A contrast with Magee
The line about the surly bonds of Earth, incidentally, comes from a 1943poem by British pilot John Magee
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was an American aviator and poet who died as a result of a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire during World War II. He was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he joined before the United States officially entered the war. He is most famous for his poem "High...
, whose Spitfire flies him, in the
poem "High Flight",
Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew--
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Magee's Spitfire and his "silent lifting mind" may not be dissimilar to the soul that takes flight in "Invective against Swans", and Stevens may be the malign and ironic observer of such bond-slipping, staying on Earth, sharing it with the crows whose dirt sullies statues, showing how
that poetic imagination can do better than to create such statues (to which "High Flyer" might be compared). It wouldn't transcend swans and clouds, larks and eagles; it would do better by them. Stevens' summer would be entirely different. (See for comparison the references to a widow's bird and an old horse in the concluding lines of Nuances of a Theme by Williams
Nuances of a Theme by Williams
"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...
.)