becomes an active part in this process as it listens
to or reads the whispered words, bringing its own
imaginative response into play. In this sense,
then, the emotions of the poet and the audience
become intertwined as both take part in the crea-
tion of the poem.
The Past versus the Present
Stevens rejects the poetry of the past in ‘‘Of
Modern Poetry,’’ suggesting that it has lost its
relevance and is only a souvenir. Traditional
poetry had significance in its own time, but that
significance has become meaningless in contem-
porary life. Poets did not have to actively engage
their imagination to find meaning in the past
since meaning was already established in pre-
vious poems, and so, he suggests, they just
repeated what had already been written. Stevens
insists that a new age requires new poetry that
reflects it. The modern poet must learn a new
language and must focus on living men and
women. This poet must also consider how one
can find meaning in war. Only by living in the
present can the poet compose modern poetry
that is sufficient for current times.
Style
Metaphor
Stevens uses metaphor (a figure of speech in
which one object is compared to something
seemingly unrelated) to explain the process of
artistic creation. He uses a constellation of meta-
phors associated with the theater. He uses these
metaphors to describe the poetry written in the
past. That poetry has set scenes and script, which
are repeated again and again. The poet who
relied on old fashioned techniques was like an
actor who is just mouthing the words someone
else has written. That play with its predictable
scenes and script is not relevant in modern times.
Stevens then suggests that a modern theater
was created when poets began to compose a new
type of poetry, one that engaged with contem-
porary life. This poetic theater requires an actor/
poet who learns a new script based on the world
of real men and women and current events such
as war. These metaphors help to dramatize the
process of creation, making the abstract ideas
more understandable.
Stevens describes the imaginative collabora-
tion between actor/poet and audience in the
construction of the play/poem. Then he adds
new metaphors in an effort to express the role
of the poet. In line 20, the actor/poet takes center
stage as a metaphysician and a musician. The
metaphysician explores the fundamental nature
of reality and is then able to illuminate its darker,
more mysterious places. The musician plays a
stringed instrument that stimulates the audien-
ce’s imagination. The music also helps express
what the poet has learned about reality as well as
a sudden rightness about its significance.Historical Context
Modernist Poetry
Modernist poetry was written in the United
States and Europe during the first three decades
of the twentieth century. The modernist move-
ment affected painting, music, and architecture,
as well as poetry and other literary genres. Mod-
ernist literature in the United States, which
reached its peak in the 1920s, expressed the dis-
illusionment many Americans experienced, espe-
cially after World War I, regarding established
social, political, and religious doctrines. Poetry
in this movement, as with other works of mod-
ernism, experimented with new ideas in psychol-
ogy, anthropology, and philosophy that had
become popular in the early part of the century.
One of the most important poems of this period
is T. S. Eliot’sThe Waste Land, which echoes the
disillusionment and anxiety many people felt in
the early 1900s.
Modernist writers challenged assumptions
about how people attain objective knowledge of
the world. They insisted that the viewer and the
subject viewed are inextricably linked, and so the
viewer cannot make objective statements about
the subject; change the viewer and the subject also
changes. William James, a prominent philoso-
pher and brother to author Henry James, wrote
during this period that reality was not an objec-
tive given but something subjectively perceived
through each individual’s consciousness. Stevens
explored this new philosophy in several of
his most famous works, including ‘‘Of Modern
Poetry,’’ ‘‘Sunday Morning,’’ and ‘‘Thirteen Ways
of Looking at a Blackbird,’’ all of which challenge
the traditional idea of the objective reality of
human experience. Stevens focused on the tension
between the imagination and reality and the
poet’s position between the two. Miller arguesOf Modern Poetry