WEBVTT 00:01.280 --> 00:04.190 Professor Langdon Hammer: I have in the 00:04.188 --> 00:07.418 chairman's office down the hall two photographs. 00:07.420 --> 00:11.890 One is of the Yale English Department in 1924, 00:11.885 --> 00:17.535 and there are a number of distinguished gentlemen casually 00:17.542 --> 00:23.152 posed in it; distinguished scholars but all 00:23.154 --> 00:27.204 gentlemen. Come by and take a look at it 00:27.202 --> 00:30.522 sometime. I also have a photograph from 00:30.521 --> 00:34.881 1967 in which there are more distinguished gentlemen, 00:34.881 --> 00:40.191 less casually posed; in fact, arrayed in a sort of 00:40.193 --> 00:46.263 phalanx, and seated in the middle of these men is one 00:46.260 --> 00:49.060 woman, Marie Borroff. 00:49.060 --> 00:54.250 Marie is our guest lecturer today and I'm delighted to have 00:54.246 --> 00:57.156 her here. She has been a member of this 00:57.155 --> 01:00.605 English Department and a distinguished member of this 01:00.607 --> 01:03.127 English Department for a long time. 01:03.130 --> 01:09.180 She is a medievalist, a scholar of modern poetry, 01:09.176 --> 01:16.226 a translator of Middle English poetry, a poet herself; 01:16.230 --> 01:20.590 and she views poetry--or I think of you, 01:20.585 --> 01:27.165 Marie, as holding a sense of poetry as a long tradition that 01:27.174 --> 01:33.874 reaches back to the origins of our language and is alive with 01:33.874 --> 01:38.054 us today, and that writing about it, 01:38.053 --> 01:43.063 writing it, and translating it are your activities, 01:43.060 --> 01:46.490 and also teaching it. 01:46.489 --> 01:51.879 And Marie is one of our best and most revered teachers in the 01:51.876 --> 01:54.476 history of this department. 01:54.480 --> 01:59.190 So, it's a really wonderful honor for me to get to give the 01:59.193 --> 02:02.773 stage and the microphone to Marie Borroff. 02:02.770 --> 02:03.690 Would you please welcome her. 02:03.690 --> 02:07.920 02:07.920 --> 02:13.140 Professor Marie Borroff: Thank you Lanny. 02:13.139 --> 02:15.869 I'm getting over a virus, so I hope my voice won't be too 02:15.873 --> 02:17.553 scratchy. I have some water to help. 02:17.550 --> 02:21.100 02:21.099 --> 02:25.309 I think of it as, it's really all the same thing: 02:25.308 --> 02:28.288 Beowulf, Galloway, Chaucer, Milton, 02:28.289 --> 02:32.059 Wallace Stevens – it's all the same thing, 02:32.059 --> 02:36.209 in a sense. I want to begin this morning 02:36.213 --> 02:41.073 with a little poem that you may never have heard of, 02:41.065 --> 02:45.245 or read, by Wallace Stevens called "Gubbinal" 02:45.251 --> 02:47.441 (g-u-b-b-i-n-a-l). 02:47.440 --> 02:50.020 And if you have the poems of Stevens here you can look at it, 02:50.020 --> 02:51.740 if you want, though it doesn't matter. 02:51.740 --> 02:55.350 I'm going to tell you it. 02:55.349 --> 02:59.459 That strange flower, the sun, 02:59.460 --> 03:04.240 Is just what you say, Have it your way. 03:04.240 --> 03:08.920 The world is ugly, And the people are sad. 03:08.920 --> 03:14.920 That tuft of jungle feathers, That animal eye, 03:14.920 --> 03:18.130 Is just what you say. 03:18.130 --> 03:22.880 That savage of fire, That seed, 03:22.880 --> 03:25.080 Have it your way. 03:25.080 --> 03:29.170 The world is ugly, And the people are sad. 03:29.169 --> 03:32.769 In this poem, the voice of the imagination in 03:32.765 --> 03:37.175 Stevens's concept of the Imagination – with a capital 03:37.178 --> 03:41.878 l – speaks, and it addresses a "you" that 03:41.881 --> 03:45.381 views the world without imagination; 03:45.379 --> 03:50.339 that is, you – the "you" of the poem – you take the sun 03:50.342 --> 03:53.302 for granted. You aren't excited by seeing 03:53.299 --> 03:56.689 it, by the thought of it, by the fact that it has risen 03:56.692 --> 04:00.402 on this particular day and you hope it's going to rise again 04:00.400 --> 04:02.510 tomorrow. You don't feel, 04:02.513 --> 04:07.203 as Stevens puts it in another poem, "the sun comes up like 04:07.202 --> 04:08.932 news from Africa." 04:08.930 --> 04:15.240 And that's how one with the imagination at work feels about 04:15.241 --> 04:17.401 the sun. Imagination, 04:17.398 --> 04:22.118 as Stevens conceives of it, is the incessant stream of 04:22.118 --> 04:27.638 language emanating from the human consciousness as we live, 04:27.639 --> 04:32.819 expressing both the state of the world at a given time and 04:32.817 --> 04:36.267 its own state, both of which states are 04:36.269 --> 04:38.449 constantly changing. 04:38.450 --> 04:40.070 Our inner state changes. 04:40.069 --> 04:44.159 Our inner weather changes, as the outer weather of the 04:44.159 --> 04:47.399 world changes and as the seasons change. 04:47.399 --> 04:52.399 The work of the imagination, as represented in "Gubbinal," 04:52.396 --> 04:55.286 is the generation of metaphors. 04:55.290 --> 05:01.630 The sun is a "strange flower," a "tuft of jungle feathers," an 05:01.628 --> 05:06.718 "animal eye," a "savage of fire," and a "seed." 05:06.720 --> 05:11.040 And one thing that's important about this to notice is the 05:11.037 --> 05:15.957 rapidity with which one metaphor gives way to another metaphor. 05:15.960 --> 05:19.500 You don't stick with one; you don't have a definitive one 05:19.499 --> 05:21.779 that is it. You go on. 05:21.779 --> 05:25.269 And if the poem were longer there'd be more metaphors still. 05:25.269 --> 05:31.289 The mind is in motion, as the world also is in motion. 05:31.290 --> 05:37.920 Implicit in this poem also is Stevens's particular concept of 05:37.923 --> 05:41.493 happiness. Without the imagination, 05:41.486 --> 05:45.396 the poem says, "the world is ugly / and the 05:45.399 --> 05:49.729 people are sad." And we can turn this statement 05:49.733 --> 05:53.153 on its head and say, with equal validity, 05:53.151 --> 05:57.681 from Steven's point of view, with the imagination. 05:57.680 --> 06:02.090 When the vital imagination is in residence and at work, 06:02.094 --> 06:06.184 the world is splendid, exciting, and the people are 06:06.182 --> 06:09.002 happy. Note that happiness has nothing 06:08.996 --> 06:12.726 to do with personal fortune, with the fact that you've been 06:12.732 --> 06:15.952 accepted by Harvard Medical School or you performed 06:15.952 --> 06:20.012 brilliantly on the basketball court or the football field, 06:20.009 --> 06:22.769 or got the date you were hoping to get. 06:22.769 --> 06:27.099 Happiness is internal, independent, 06:27.100 --> 06:30.920 self-starting, but also shared, 06:30.922 --> 06:35.832 communal, human. The work of the imagination, 06:35.829 --> 06:39.279 for Stevens, is the same as the writing of 06:39.284 --> 06:43.754 poetry: the generation of poetry on a small scale, 06:43.750 --> 06:49.040 as in "Gubbinal" and many other such, or on a large mythical 06:49.041 --> 06:52.541 scale, as in "The Auroras of Autumn." 06:52.540 --> 06:57.710 A lot of Stevens's early poems are called, by him, 06:57.713 --> 07:00.293 anecdotes. Now, an anecdote, 07:00.287 --> 07:04.597 if you go back to the etymology of the word, is something 07:04.596 --> 07:07.496 unpublished. It's like a draft. 07:07.500 --> 07:10.670 And what Stevens would do--He lived in Hartford, 07:10.669 --> 07:12.219 as you probably know. 07:12.220 --> 07:15.510 He worked in a big insurance company, it was very successful, 07:15.507 --> 07:18.787 and he would walk every morning – he was a great walker – 07:18.794 --> 07:21.814 from his home in West Hartford to his office in downtown 07:21.808 --> 07:22.628 Hartford. 07:22.630 --> 07:25.780 07:25.779 --> 07:29.019 As he walked, he would write poems, 07:29.015 --> 07:31.485 poems would come to him. 07:31.490 --> 07:34.240 He once said, "I never like anything that 07:34.241 --> 07:37.201 doesn't fly in at me through the window." 07:37.199 --> 07:40.629 He'd get to the office, he'd call on his secretary, 07:40.625 --> 07:44.795 and he'd dictate the poems he had thought of on the way to the 07:44.804 --> 07:46.864 office on separate sheets. 07:46.860 --> 07:50.380 She would give him the poems, he'd put them in a desk drawer, 07:50.381 --> 07:53.671 and then in about a month he'd go through what was in the 07:53.668 --> 07:56.778 drawer and throw some of them away and keep some. 07:56.779 --> 08:00.759 And the ones he kept would go into whatever book it was that 08:00.762 --> 08:04.792 he was writing. Oh to have his wastebaskets, 08:04.794 --> 08:08.694 is what I say! I dare to think that Stevens 08:08.691 --> 08:12.391 would have liked, or at least approved of the 08:12.386 --> 08:16.016 idea of, the first stanza of a poem I 08:16.015 --> 08:20.645 wrote many years ago, when I was getting up early 08:20.652 --> 08:25.582 enough in March to see the sun rise: "Black rim, 08:25.579 --> 08:33.359 pale dawn, now as to rolling drums, sun, your great signal 08:33.357 --> 08:36.357 comes to bid me on." 08:36.360 --> 08:41.220 But Stevens said it less pretentiously and better. 08:41.220 --> 08:44.210 He wrote: The sun, that brave man, 08:44.210 --> 08:47.680 Comes through boughs that lie in wait, 08:47.680 --> 08:51.460 That brave man. … [I'm skipping a little.] 08:51.460 --> 08:55.920 Fears of my bed, Fears of life and fears of 08:55.922 --> 08:58.092 death, Run away. 08:58.090 --> 09:02.390 That brave man comes up From below and walks without 09:02.394 --> 09:05.454 meditation, That brave man. 09:05.450 --> 09:08.690 And if you can think of the sun as a brave man, 09:08.692 --> 09:11.232 you're well into Stevens, I think. 09:11.230 --> 09:16.630 I'm sure Stevens would have liked a story that I'm about to 09:16.634 --> 09:20.064 tell you. When I was teaching Stevens 09:20.059 --> 09:25.479 years ago, among other poets in my course in twentieth-century 09:25.481 --> 09:28.551 poetry, I was walking on campus one day 09:28.554 --> 09:32.084 and I ran into one of my students, and we were just 09:32.078 --> 09:33.768 reading Stevens then. 09:33.769 --> 09:36.089 And I said to him, "Well, how are you? 09:36.090 --> 09:37.730 How goes it, how are things?" 09:37.730 --> 09:38.800 He said, "Oh, I'm fine." 09:38.799 --> 09:42.999 He said, "All my friends are depressed, but when I hear how 09:42.999 --> 09:46.569 depressed they are, I look at them and I think, 09:46.566 --> 09:49.816 'Have it your way, the world is ugly and the 09:49.824 --> 09:53.684 people are sad.'" And Stevens would have liked 09:53.677 --> 09:58.687 that because Stevens said that, strangely, that poetry should 09:58.686 --> 10:02.606 make us happy, should help to make us happy. 10:02.610 --> 10:06.420 He also said – this is rather hard to swallow perhaps for 10:06.424 --> 10:10.374 someone who's been struggling with "The Auroras of Autumn" or 10:10.369 --> 10:14.579 "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" or any of the other big ones – 10:14.578 --> 10:18.588 people should enjoy poetry the way a child enjoys snow. 10:18.590 --> 10:20.500 And that is true. 10:20.500 --> 10:23.380 In reading Stevens, especially reading the little 10:23.379 --> 10:26.679 poems, I always say you shouldn't worry about a poem. 10:26.679 --> 10:30.089 You should read on and find one that tickles you, 10:30.086 --> 10:32.846 that you like, and make a mark there and 10:32.853 --> 10:36.263 return to that poem later and read it again; 10:36.259 --> 10:41.799 though, it's also important, I know, to study Stevens, 10:41.800 --> 10:47.760 to study especially the large poems, the big creations. 10:47.759 --> 10:54.479 "The Auroras of Autumn" exists in a sequence of seasonal poems, 10:54.478 --> 10:59.678 large-scale seasonal poems that Stevens wrote. 10:59.679 --> 11:02.569 The earliest one, in seasonal terms, 11:02.574 --> 11:07.294 is "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction", and that is a poem of 11:07.289 --> 11:10.069 the spring. And if you read it you'll see a 11:10.066 --> 11:12.396 lot of things that are associated with spring in 11:12.396 --> 11:15.036 Connecticut. You'll see the forget-me-not in 11:15.036 --> 11:18.706 bloom, though he calls it the myosotis, not to be sentimental 11:18.706 --> 11:21.146 about it. You'll hear about forsythia; 11:21.149 --> 11:24.009 you'll hear about yellow and the blue sky. 11:24.010 --> 11:26.820 It's a spring poem. 11:26.820 --> 11:30.400 Then comes "Credences of Summer," and then comes "The 11:30.403 --> 11:31.853 Auroras of Autumn." 11:31.850 --> 11:34.900 Now, these poems go chronologically, 11:34.899 --> 11:40.129 seasonally, but they also go chronologically in Stevens's own 11:40.125 --> 11:42.775 life. He is older as he writes each 11:42.781 --> 11:45.621 one of them. When he wrote "The Auroras of 11:45.617 --> 11:47.957 Autumn," he was in his seventies. 11:47.960 --> 11:53.660 And this is the first of the poems in which the idea of death 11:53.659 --> 11:58.219 comes in, dauntingly, the idea of human death; 11:58.220 --> 12:03.600 because one thing that autumn is is the season that presages 12:03.601 --> 12:08.011 winter, winter death, the death of the landscape in 12:08.014 --> 12:12.804 New England, and ultimately the death of the individual human 12:12.801 --> 12:16.711 being. And that threat comes into the 12:16.711 --> 12:20.011 poem and is faced in the poem. 12:20.009 --> 12:27.539 Now, I want to go back to the beginning of the poem – so if 12:27.542 --> 12:35.452 you have a copy of it you could look at the beginning – and go 12:35.451 --> 12:41.191 very quickly through, say, sections one through seven 12:41.194 --> 12:46.324 maybe, because I'm going to end by talking about sections nine 12:46.319 --> 12:50.099 and ten and something about section eight. 12:50.100 --> 12:55.740 In the poem, we see the imagination in its 12:55.741 --> 12:59.871 work as the creator of myth. 12:59.870 --> 13:02.760 This has always been true of human culture. 13:02.759 --> 13:06.109 There have always been great myths of the world: 13:06.106 --> 13:09.236 the myth that the world rests on a turtle, 13:09.240 --> 13:13.310 or the myth of creation, how the world was created or 13:13.310 --> 13:15.580 how the animals first came. 13:15.580 --> 13:21.270 And Stevens toys with mythical creation in the poem. 13:21.269 --> 13:24.049 In particular, in section one, 13:24.049 --> 13:29.419 he writes three different myths, one of which succeeds to 13:29.417 --> 13:32.767 the other, in true Stevensian fashion, 13:32.769 --> 13:36.859 because an essence of the world, as Stevens thinks about 13:36.863 --> 13:39.623 it, is change, as I intimated 13:39.618 --> 13:42.268 earlier. It's hard to imagine Stevens 13:42.267 --> 13:45.707 living anywhere but in a temperate climate where there 13:45.706 --> 13:48.216 are seasons. It's hard to think of him as 13:48.224 --> 13:51.484 living in the tropics or in Antarctica because he's a man of 13:51.479 --> 13:53.519 the seasons, a man of the weather. 13:53.519 --> 13:55.309 He writes a lot about the weather. 13:55.309 --> 13:58.109 One of his poems begins, "Lights out. 13:58.110 --> 14:01.190 Shades up. / A look at the weather": 14:01.186 --> 14:05.516 let's see what the weather is tonight, on this particular 14:05.523 --> 14:08.393 night. In the first section of "The 14:08.391 --> 14:12.351 Auroras of Autumn," there are three different myths, 14:12.346 --> 14:16.686 one of which succeeds to another with equal validity. 14:16.690 --> 14:19.820 They are three myths about serpents. 14:19.820 --> 14:25.770 First, we have the cosmic serpent: "the bodiless. 14:25.770 --> 14:27.690 / His head is air." 14:27.690 --> 14:30.670 I'm reading from the beginning of the section. 14:30.669 --> 14:35.879 "Beneath his tip at night / Eyes open and fix on us in every 14:35.881 --> 14:38.581 sky." Clearly there he is talking 14:38.583 --> 14:43.143 about the dawning of stars at night, "eyes open and fixed on 14:43.136 --> 14:44.676 us in every sky." 14:44.679 --> 14:49.619 So, this is a huge cosmic serpent that he is imagining. 14:49.620 --> 14:53.860 He's imagining the heavens as presided over by a great serpent 14:53.860 --> 14:58.100 which may well have something to do with a constellation named 14:58.100 --> 15:01.970 Draco (d-r-a-c-o), which is "dragon" or "snake." 15:01.970 --> 15:07.720 Then we throw that one away, and Stevens says "Or is this 15:07.721 --> 15:11.201 another…?" An "or" in Stevens always has 15:11.201 --> 15:14.371 to be answered or responded to by saying, yes: 15:14.370 --> 15:17.680 this is another one, let's have another one; 15:17.679 --> 15:19.819 we've just had one, let's throw that one out and 15:19.816 --> 15:20.676 have another one. 15:20.679 --> 15:24.339 The stale has to always be thrown out. 15:24.340 --> 15:29.760 So now, we get a terrestrial serpent, on a huge scale. 15:29.759 --> 15:32.479 "This is where the serpent lives"; 15:32.480 --> 15:34.240 you could underline that. 15:34.240 --> 15:37.220 At the beginning of the poem, "This is where the serpent 15:37.222 --> 15:39.742 lives." Well, that's in line one. 15:39.740 --> 15:42.660 Now we're in line seven: "This is where the serpent 15:42.662 --> 15:44.562 lives. This is his nest, 15:44.564 --> 15:46.844 / these fields, these hills, 15:46.843 --> 15:51.403 these tinted distances, / and the pines above and along 15:51.400 --> 15:53.510 and beside the sea." 15:53.509 --> 15:58.329 So here, we have a serpent that is a terrestrial myth, 15:58.333 --> 16:02.163 a myth of the whole, encompassing the whole 16:02.155 --> 16:04.835 landscape. And finally, 16:04.839 --> 16:10.589 almost at the end, "his meditations in the ferns," 16:10.593 --> 16:13.063 can you find that? 16:13.059 --> 16:16.939 It's the next-to-last tercet of that section – "his" is 16:16.939 --> 16:20.749 clearly "the serpent's" meditations: "His meditations in 16:20.750 --> 16:24.360 the ferns, / when he moved so slightly to 16:24.364 --> 16:28.334 make sure of sun / made us no less as sure." 16:28.330 --> 16:34.120 And here is a third serpent, and this is a local serpent, 16:34.124 --> 16:39.514 a particular serpent, a serpent visualized in sensory 16:39.505 --> 16:43.645 terms. "We saw in his head / black 16:43.652 --> 16:49.422 beaded on the rock, the flecked animal / The moving 16:49.415 --> 16:53.445 grass, the Indian in his glade." 16:53.450 --> 16:57.480 The Indian in his glade, the Indian's glade; 16:57.480 --> 16:59.680 that is, the native of the soil. 16:59.679 --> 17:05.309 In this section we find one of the great opposites in Stevens, 17:05.311 --> 17:08.821 the great oppositions between pairs. 17:08.819 --> 17:11.629 Imagination and reality is, of course, one or 17:11.633 --> 17:14.323 Imagination with a capital I, 17:14.319 --> 17:17.899 versus imagination with a lowercase i; 17:17.900 --> 17:21.530 an imagination that sort of produces little fancies. 17:21.529 --> 17:25.509 But here, we have a strange opposition, which is rather 17:25.505 --> 17:30.405 idiosyncratic with Stevens, between abstraction and--not 17:30.408 --> 17:35.648 between the abstract and the concrete, but between the 17:35.647 --> 17:39.797 abstract and the particular, the local. 17:39.799 --> 17:43.559 And with that, very often characteristically 17:43.557 --> 17:47.837 in Stevens, there comes a flash of the sensory, 17:47.839 --> 17:51.339 a detail of color: "black beaded," the 17:51.339 --> 17:56.329 black-beaded head of the snake; a particular glade in New 17:56.329 --> 18:00.739 England where Native Americans once lived – "the Indian in 18:00.740 --> 18:03.880 his glade" – the recognition of that. 18:03.880 --> 18:09.080 So, this opening section of the poem demonstrates the 18:09.079 --> 18:13.679 imagination at work as a generator of myths. 18:13.680 --> 18:17.470 And one myth succeeds to another myth. 18:17.470 --> 18:21.200 There's the cosmic serpent, the terrestrial serpent, 18:21.204 --> 18:24.724 and the local serpent, the particular serpent, 18:24.720 --> 18:29.320 the serpent that we see right there, on a particular day. 18:29.319 --> 18:33.729 Now, something happens that's characteristically Stevensian, 18:33.725 --> 18:37.305 and it occurs at the beginning of section two. 18:37.309 --> 18:40.969 And this is something that not everyone agrees on but this is 18:40.969 --> 18:42.249 how I interpret it. 18:42.250 --> 18:45.230 What I'm giving you is my interpretation of the poem, 18:45.226 --> 18:48.256 which you have to take for better or for worse for the 18:48.260 --> 18:52.030 moment. "Farewell to an idea…" I take 18:52.033 --> 18:58.323 this to be the discarding of an achieved idea and the moving on 18:58.320 --> 19:00.450 to something else. 19:00.450 --> 19:05.210 So, what Stevens is saying farewell to is the whole serpent 19:05.211 --> 19:07.671 mythology: cosmic, terrestrial, 19:07.674 --> 19:08.664 and all. 19:08.660 --> 19:13.300 19:13.299 --> 19:17.089 And from that we turn to something different. 19:17.089 --> 19:22.579 We turn to seasonal change, the change from summer to 19:22.579 --> 19:25.089 autumn. And another important 19:25.091 --> 19:29.181 Stevensian opposition comes into play in this section, 19:29.180 --> 19:36.390 and that is the opposition between whiteness and color or, 19:36.392 --> 19:41.202 as Stevens often calls it, "candor." 19:41.200 --> 19:44.050 "Candor," as you may know, is whiteness, 19:44.048 --> 19:47.258 and if we were true to our Latin etymologies, 19:47.262 --> 19:50.332 all candidates would wear white robes; 19:50.329 --> 19:53.459 of course, it's a little hard to imagine some of them in a 19:53.456 --> 19:55.776 white robe. At any rate, 19:55.776 --> 19:59.656 "candor" is abstract, white. 19:59.660 --> 20:03.900 He also uses the word "blank" in this section: 20:03.898 --> 20:08.888 "the man who is walking turns blankly on the sand." 20:08.890 --> 20:14.100 In "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction," the poem begins with 20:14.099 --> 20:19.219 whiteness and moves from whiteness, from that ever-early 20:19.216 --> 20:24.286 candor, to its late plural; from the abstract to the 20:24.285 --> 20:27.285 particular, multifarious plural. 20:27.290 --> 20:34.430 Here summer is stale; it's over, it has happened, 20:34.430 --> 20:37.960 so now it's time to throw it out and move on to something 20:37.956 --> 20:39.766 else, namely autumn, 20:39.766 --> 20:44.056 and the whiteness is visualized as a landscape: 20:44.057 --> 20:47.597 "A cabin stands, / deserted on a beach." 20:47.599 --> 20:50.449 And it's the sort of summer cabin that we all, 20:50.448 --> 20:53.678 most of us, probably know: a white beach and a white 20:53.676 --> 20:56.586 cabin, probably a white fence and 20:56.587 --> 21:01.757 maybe a white enclosure for a shower that you can take after 21:01.756 --> 21:04.596 you've swum. It's summer. 21:04.599 --> 21:05.959 …The flowers against the wall 21:05.960 --> 21:09.850 Are white… Reminding… of a white 21:09.849 --> 21:11.999 That was different, something else, 21:12.003 --> 21:13.633 last year Or before. 21:13.630 --> 21:16.180 … [And now the wind is beginning 21:16.178 --> 21:18.518 to blow. Summer is over.] The wind is 21:18.519 --> 21:21.239 blowing the sand across the floor. 21:21.240 --> 21:24.720 Here being visible is being white, 21:24.720 --> 21:28.180 Is being of the solid of white, the accomplishment 21:28.180 --> 21:30.920 Of an extremist in an exercise... 21:30.920 --> 21:32.750 The season changes. 21:32.750 --> 21:35.720 A cold wind chills the beach. 21:35.720 --> 21:39.610 The long lines of it grow longer, emptier, 21:39.609 --> 21:42.549 A darkness gathers though it does not fall 21:42.549 --> 21:46.189 And the whiteness grows less vivid on the wall. 21:46.190 --> 21:51.560 Again and again in "The Auroras of Autumn," we have some sort of 21:51.556 --> 21:55.216 reassuring or splendid or restful vision, 21:55.220 --> 21:58.910 and then comes some sort of threat, "a cold wind." 21:58.910 --> 22:02.680 In one of the sections the wind knocks "like a rifle-butt 22:02.675 --> 22:04.015 against the door." 22:04.019 --> 22:08.579 And this poem was written during the decade of World War 22:08.576 --> 22:10.726 Two, so violence, death, 22:10.730 --> 22:15.820 and the coming of winter are linked implicitly in the poem 22:15.817 --> 22:19.407 with the idea of war, the death of war. 22:19.410 --> 22:24.360 And then, we go to a single man who is always the vehicle of the 22:24.359 --> 22:27.509 imagination. In the end, the imagination has 22:27.511 --> 22:30.821 to reside in the consciousness of the individual, 22:30.819 --> 22:34.819 of each one of us, although from it we can project 22:34.819 --> 22:38.899 a great cosmic imagination – an unmoved mover, 22:38.900 --> 22:44.050 a generator of images – as Stevens does later in the poem. 22:44.049 --> 22:47.359 So here, we have our hero, the individual man, 22:47.356 --> 22:51.196 the man imagining: The man who is walking 22:51.201 --> 22:53.421 turns blankly on the sand. 22:53.420 --> 22:57.920 He observes how the north is always enlarging the change, 22:57.920 --> 23:02.850 With its frigid brilliances, its blue-red sweeps 23:02.849 --> 23:07.729 And gusts of great enkindlings, its polar green, 23:07.730 --> 23:12.650 The color of ice and fire and solitude. 23:12.650 --> 23:16.480 So here, what happens is very much like what happens to white 23:16.476 --> 23:20.106 light when it's put through a prism and broken up into the 23:20.111 --> 23:21.771 colors of the rainbow. 23:21.769 --> 23:24.739 This is what happens in the beginning of "Notes Toward a 23:24.737 --> 23:27.217 Supreme Fiction" and it's what happens here. 23:27.220 --> 23:32.820 The whiteness of summer breaks up into the prismatic colors of 23:32.817 --> 23:35.017 the auroras of autumn. 23:35.019 --> 23:38.439 Now, you probably have never seen them. 23:38.440 --> 23:43.690 I've never seen the auroras of autumn, but I happen to know a 23:43.693 --> 23:48.053 man who was at Yale, living on the old campus in the 23:48.047 --> 23:52.667 early 1940s, and he told me that he remembered coming out of 23:52.668 --> 23:56.348 where he lived at night onto the old campus, 23:56.349 --> 23:59.689 and looking up and seeing the Aurora Borealis, 23:59.692 --> 24:02.642 in color. It could happen then. 24:02.640 --> 24:08.610 I've seen it in Maine in the summer sky, but as I've seen it, 24:08.612 --> 24:11.302 it's been white and dark. 24:11.299 --> 24:15.039 And what you see are white pulsations in the sky. 24:15.039 --> 24:16.949 They're very beautiful and they're very wonderful. 24:16.950 --> 24:20.180 But it's been many, many years since I saw any 24:20.184 --> 24:21.914 colors in the auroras. 24:21.910 --> 24:25.710 Nonetheless, this is what he's writing 24:25.707 --> 24:30.117 about, the Aurora Borealis in its colors. 24:30.119 --> 24:34.199 Section three, here again, "Farewell to an 24:34.195 --> 24:36.525 idea..." Away with the cabin, 24:36.528 --> 24:39.138 away with the man walking on the sand. 24:39.140 --> 24:46.390 Now, we move to something else, and what we move to in the next 24:46.387 --> 24:51.147 few sections are myths, large-scale myths: 24:51.154 --> 24:55.874 first the myth of the mother, the earth mother, 24:55.867 --> 24:58.547 let's say, or the sky mother; 24:58.549 --> 25:02.909 the mother as nurturing, as warm, as tender; 25:02.910 --> 25:06.800 the mother who could perhaps be symbolized by summer, 25:06.804 --> 25:11.374 by a balmy, beneficent summer day, or by the warmth of the sun 25:11.372 --> 25:14.902 on a summer day. Then we get the father, 25:14.901 --> 25:19.051 the myth of the father, and this is the kind of, 25:19.053 --> 25:22.713 well, let's say the Jove-like or 25:22.705 --> 25:27.795 Zeus-like being: the man who presides over the 25:27.803 --> 25:32.533 heavens. But first, we have the mother. 25:32.529 --> 25:36.099 The mother "…gives transparence to their present 25:36.097 --> 25:39.037 peace. / She makes that gentler that 25:39.038 --> 25:41.648 can gentle be." But here again, 25:41.651 --> 25:44.711 as over and over, as I said earlier, 25:44.711 --> 25:48.821 in this poem, the concept of something warm, 25:48.819 --> 25:53.529 gentle, and reassuring gives way to some sort of threat – 25:53.526 --> 25:57.256 the coming of cold, the wind, the darkness, 25:57.260 --> 26:02.290 and finally the wind "like a rifle-butt" at the end of the 26:02.293 --> 26:05.373 poem. Boreal night [I'm toward 26:05.365 --> 26:09.685 the end of section three here] Will look like frost as it 26:09.690 --> 26:13.040 approaches them, And to the mother as she falls 26:13.035 --> 26:16.005 asleep. And as they say goodnight, 26:16.010 --> 26:18.080 goodnight. Upstairs 26:18.079 --> 26:21.579 The windows will be lighted, not the rooms. 26:21.580 --> 26:22.790 What does that mean? 26:22.789 --> 26:26.439 That means that they've turned off the lights and gone to bed. 26:26.440 --> 26:29.390 Nonetheless, there are lights appearing in 26:29.387 --> 26:33.767 the windows, and what can they be but the lights of the Aurora 26:33.772 --> 26:37.512 Borealis that shine in the windows of the house? 26:37.509 --> 26:40.219 Even though the light doesn't come from within the house, 26:40.223 --> 26:41.583 it comes from the heavens. 26:41.579 --> 26:45.329 A wind will spread its windy grandeurs round 26:45.329 --> 26:48.929 And knock like a rifle-butt against the door. 26:48.930 --> 26:53.530 The wind will command them with invincible sound." 26:53.529 --> 26:58.059 So, this is the temporary, reassuring togetherness; 26:58.059 --> 27:01.789 I hate that word but I can't avoid it really in this section. 27:01.789 --> 27:05.199 This is where we were all together with the mother, 27:05.199 --> 27:07.789 and all was well, and it was summer. 27:07.790 --> 27:10.130 But it can't last; it never lasts; 27:10.130 --> 27:13.750 something more, something less welcome takes 27:13.749 --> 27:16.049 its place. Section four, 27:16.053 --> 27:21.033 "Farewell to an idea…" Leave the mother behind; 27:21.030 --> 27:24.390 we've had her. Now, we move to the father. 27:24.390 --> 27:28.500 "The father sits / in space, wherever he sits, 27:28.496 --> 27:30.226 of bleak regard." 27:30.230 --> 27:34.060 He is not a warm, nurturing kind of presence. 27:34.060 --> 27:36.920 His regard, his gaze is bleak. 27:36.920 --> 27:41.230 And then we have this curious image: "as one that is strong in 27:41.232 --> 27:43.072 the bushes of his eyes." 27:43.069 --> 27:45.449 I think that alludes to the word "ambush." 27:45.450 --> 27:49.800 He has a power that is held in check, as when someone is 27:49.799 --> 27:53.759 ambushed. The strength is there and is 27:53.762 --> 27:58.162 not yet let out. "He says no to no": 27:58.159 --> 28:01.209 that's an affirmation. 28:01.210 --> 28:05.890 "He says yes to yes": that's an affirmation. 28:05.890 --> 28:09.490 "He says yes to no": that is an affirmation. 28:09.490 --> 28:12.880 He always affirms; he never denies. 28:12.880 --> 28:17.530 And he affirms something new and then something new and then 28:17.529 --> 28:20.999 something new, as signified by "in saying yes 28:20.996 --> 28:25.296 he says farewell"; that is, when you accept and 28:25.300 --> 28:28.880 affirm the new idea, the new imaginative 28:28.881 --> 28:32.021 construction, you have said farewell to the 28:32.015 --> 28:34.885 one that preceded it, as he has done earlier in the 28:34.887 --> 28:37.527 poem – farewell to the idea of the cabin, 28:37.529 --> 28:40.409 farewell to the idea of the mother. 28:40.410 --> 28:45.090 "He leaps from heaven to heaven, more rapidly / than bad 28:45.090 --> 28:48.920 angels leap from heaven to hell in flames." 28:48.920 --> 28:52.430 This is clearly an allusion to the Christian myth, 28:52.426 --> 28:56.216 and I'm going to bring up the Christian myth later, 28:56.220 --> 28:59.650 toward the end of what I'm saying about the poem. 28:59.650 --> 29:02.210 You perhaps have read, if you're English majors, 29:02.213 --> 29:04.453 you may have read Paradise Lost. 29:04.450 --> 29:08.510 So, you've read about how the bad angels leap from Heaven to 29:08.508 --> 29:10.548 Hell. They're driven out by the 29:10.552 --> 29:12.242 powers of God and his Son. 29:12.240 --> 29:18.310 So, the father leaps; that is, his imagination, 29:18.311 --> 29:22.411 the cosmic imagination, the large scale imagination 29:22.413 --> 29:26.763 that he personifies, is hugely vital and capable of 29:26.759 --> 29:31.189 leaping from one concept to another, from one heaven to 29:31.188 --> 29:33.478 another, and from one myth to another. 29:33.480 --> 29:36.480 29:36.480 --> 29:40.960 Now, I meant to say a little earlier and I will say now, 29:40.957 --> 29:44.457 that I think, though I couldn't substantiate 29:44.458 --> 29:49.298 it from this place alone, that toward the end of section 29:49.297 --> 29:52.597 three – the mother as she falls asleep, 29:52.600 --> 29:57.550 "and as they say good-night, good-night" – I consider that 29:57.546 --> 30:01.466 one of a number of allusions in the poem to the play 30:01.471 --> 30:07.781 Hamlet. There's a lot of theater. 30:07.779 --> 30:11.639 Theater is one of the motifs of the poem, and I haven't time to 30:11.635 --> 30:15.175 go into that in detail, but you see it again and again. 30:15.180 --> 30:19.020 And one of the things that happens in the poem is that a 30:19.017 --> 30:22.857 company of actors comes, as happens in Hamlet and 30:22.855 --> 30:24.595 Hamlet welcomes them. 30:24.599 --> 30:27.159 And "Good night, good night, good night sweet 30:27.156 --> 30:30.526 ladies, good night sweet ladies, good night, good night," I 30:30.525 --> 30:32.205 think it alludes to that. 30:32.210 --> 30:36.220 Eliot quotes that; I think it's in The Waste 30:36.224 --> 30:37.914 Land that he does it. 30:37.910 --> 30:43.970 So the masks--the actors come in company. 30:43.970 --> 30:47.190 Now, I'm at section four, toward the end of that section. 30:47.190 --> 30:49.630 "The actors approach in company in their masks." 30:49.630 --> 30:51.580 These are not human actors. 30:51.579 --> 30:55.289 This is a superhuman drama that is being played, 30:55.293 --> 30:57.983 and the father is inviting them. 30:57.980 --> 31:02.850 And then there's a very eloquent invocation of the 31:02.849 --> 31:07.519 father as the master, the master of the maze. 31:07.519 --> 31:10.909 Master O master seated by the fire 31:10.910 --> 31:15.070 And yet in space and motionless and yet 31:15.069 --> 31:18.279 Of motion the ever-brightening origin, 31:18.279 --> 31:22.109 Profound, and yet the king and yet the crown, 31:22.110 --> 31:24.170 Look at this present throne. 31:24.170 --> 31:28.800 What company In masks can choir it with the 31:28.799 --> 31:32.159 naked wind? How can we celebrate? 31:32.160 --> 31:36.620 How can there be a theatrical celebration of the world when 31:36.622 --> 31:40.852 the wind is blowing and autumn is coming and darkness is 31:40.853 --> 31:44.503 coming? To call the master the origin 31:44.498 --> 31:50.478 of motion – motionless and yet the origin of motion – is to 31:50.480 --> 31:55.500 go back to concepts of God: the divine as the unmoved 31:55.498 --> 31:58.808 mover, a term applied to the Christian 31:58.814 --> 32:01.654 God and sometimes to other divinities. 32:01.650 --> 32:05.150 So, once again, we have an allusion to 32:05.145 --> 32:10.145 religion, which is nonetheless not part of a religious 32:10.153 --> 32:14.413 presentation. In section five, 32:14.411 --> 32:21.041 the mother and the father give a party. 32:21.039 --> 32:23.909 I don't happen to like this section very much. 32:23.910 --> 32:28.450 I don't think Stevens really succeeds in jazzing it up the 32:28.447 --> 32:31.827 way he tries to. The children laugh. 32:31.829 --> 32:36.049 I don't like the negresses who dance: 32:36.050 --> 32:39.180 …like curious ripenesses of pattern… 32:39.180 --> 32:41.210 …[T]he musicians make insidious tones, 32:41.210 --> 32:43.740 Clawing the sing-song of their instruments. 32:43.740 --> 32:46.420 The children laugh and jangle a tinny time. 32:46.420 --> 32:49.550 Well, he's trying very hard to jazz it up but for me it doesn't 32:49.553 --> 32:51.783 quite work. Nonetheless, this is what it is. 32:51.779 --> 32:55.499 This is the party that the world stages for us, 32:55.496 --> 32:58.596 as we look out; the party of spring or the 32:58.600 --> 33:02.260 party of the colors of autumn leaves, and it's a kind of 33:02.260 --> 33:04.590 symbolic representation of that. 33:04.589 --> 33:08.999 "…he musicians strike the instinctive poem" and so on. 33:09.000 --> 33:11.350 This then is Chatillon. 33:11.349 --> 33:17.379 You find that's three stanzas, three tercets from the end of 33:17.377 --> 33:22.687 that section. I believe that Chatillon is 33:22.690 --> 33:29.970 used here as the name of a great chateau in France. 33:29.970 --> 33:31.440 There is such a chateau. 33:31.440 --> 33:35.090 So, it is a palace, a castle, where there could be 33:35.089 --> 33:38.589 a splendid party with dancers and with music. 33:38.589 --> 33:40.889 "This then is Chatillon or as you please. 33:40.890 --> 33:43.880 / We stand in the tumult of the festival." 33:43.880 --> 33:46.720 The world is a kind of tumultuous festival at times 33:46.723 --> 33:48.773 that goes on around us, let's say, 33:48.769 --> 33:52.699 on an autumn day when the trees are very bright in color and the 33:52.703 --> 33:56.573 wind is blowing and the sky is blue and the leaves are drifting 33:56.573 --> 33:59.123 from the trees. It's the tumult of a festival. 33:59.120 --> 34:02.180 But all of a sudden: What festival? 34:02.180 --> 34:05.160 This loud, disordered, mooch? 34:05.160 --> 34:07.710 These brute-like guests? 34:07.710 --> 34:10.640 These musicians dubbing at a tragedy, 34:10.639 --> 34:12.599 A-dub, a-dub, which is made up of this: 34:12.599 --> 34:15.279 That there are no lines to speak? 34:15.280 --> 34:18.140 There is no play. 34:18.139 --> 34:23.219 Or, the persons act one merely by being here. 34:23.219 --> 34:26.729 So, once again, we have affirmation and then 34:26.732 --> 34:29.512 comes threat, then comes denial. 34:29.510 --> 34:32.340 There really is no play, there is no theater. 34:32.340 --> 34:35.210 It's only something that we imagine. 34:35.210 --> 34:39.350 But then immediately, as if to prove its validity and 34:39.350 --> 34:42.850 its vitality, the great imagination speaks in 34:42.853 --> 34:47.713 section six and utters at the beginning of that section one of 34:47.711 --> 34:52.491 the most eloquent tributes to the beauty of the cosmos that I 34:52.488 --> 34:57.338 know in poetry, in which an amazing telescoping 34:57.342 --> 34:59.392 of time takes place. 34:59.390 --> 35:00.090 What do they call it? 35:00.090 --> 35:01.890 Fast-forward photography? 35:01.889 --> 35:07.639 Perhaps you've seen one where the flower grows up and is seen 35:07.636 --> 35:11.116 blooming. Here, we see geology in fast 35:11.120 --> 35:15.890 forward, we see mountains rising and falling like water, 35:15.894 --> 35:19.054 like waves. It is a theatre floating 35:19.054 --> 35:22.274 through the clouds, Itself a cloud, 35:22.273 --> 35:28.103 although of misted rock And mountains running like 35:28.096 --> 35:33.836 water, wave on wave Through waves of light. 35:33.840 --> 35:35.660 It is of cloud, transformed again [a cloud, 35:35.660 --> 35:41.160 transformed again] idly, the way A season changes color, 35:41.158 --> 35:44.448 to no end, Except the lavishing of itself 35:44.453 --> 35:48.133 in change, As light changes yellow into 35:48.127 --> 35:51.477 gold, and gold To its opal elements, 35:51.478 --> 35:55.508 and fires delight, Splashed wide-wise because it 35:55.514 --> 35:58.824 likes magnificence And the solemn pleasures of 35:58.815 --> 36:02.345 magnificent space. And then human history is seen 36:02.354 --> 36:05.024 fast forwarding, as the section goes on: 36:05.020 --> 36:08.150 A capitol, It may be, is emerging or has 36:08.152 --> 36:09.142 just Collapsed. 36:09.139 --> 36:13.549 [A civilization has come as a mountain has come and has 36:13.550 --> 36:16.480 collapsed.] The denouement has to be 36:16.477 --> 36:19.917 postponed… But now, once again, 36:19.919 --> 36:23.989 the all-importance of the hero, the human hero, 36:23.987 --> 36:27.877 that is, the imagining mind, is affirmed. 36:27.880 --> 36:31.480 This is nothing until in a single man contained, 36:31.480 --> 36:35.750 Nothing until this named thing nameless is 36:35.750 --> 36:37.550 And is destroyed. 36:37.550 --> 36:41.290 He opens the door of his house On flames. 36:41.289 --> 36:43.359 [That's the aurora, in other words, 36:43.357 --> 36:44.997 the Aurora Borealis.] The 36:45.000 --> 36:49.910 scholar of one candle sees An Arctic effulgence flaring on 36:49.905 --> 36:52.765 the frame Of everything he is. 36:52.770 --> 36:57.440 And he feels afraid. In section seven, 36:57.440 --> 37:03.000 Stevens visualizes autumn as, let's say, a mythical 37:03.002 --> 37:06.962 hypothesis. Suppose that there is a cosmic 37:06.957 --> 37:11.747 imagination that imagines the whole show, an imagination that 37:11.753 --> 37:14.873 imagines the passing of the seasons, 37:14.869 --> 37:18.079 that imagines the earth, the solar system, 37:18.081 --> 37:19.571 the whole cosmos. 37:19.570 --> 37:21.870 Suppose that maybe there is. 37:21.870 --> 37:23.770 Let's imagine that there is. 37:23.769 --> 37:26.359 So, the answer to the questions are always "yes." 37:26.360 --> 37:29.600 Is there an imagination that sits enthroned 37:29.599 --> 37:32.209 As grim as it is benevolent, the just 37:32.210 --> 37:35.640 And the unjust, which in the midst of summer 37:35.641 --> 37:37.931 stops To imagine winter? 37:37.929 --> 37:39.759 [Yes there is, why not?] 37:39.760 --> 37:43.800 When the leaves are dead, Does it take its place in the 37:43.795 --> 37:46.325 north and unfold itself, Goat-leaper, 37:46.329 --> 37:48.829 crystalled and luminous, sitting 37:48.830 --> 37:53.320 In highest night? Here – and I have no time to 37:53.324 --> 37:57.834 go into this aspect of the poem, which is another one like the 37:57.826 --> 38:01.516 theater and then the Hamlet allusions that I 38:01.516 --> 38:06.016 think are there – this is part of the astronomical motifs in 38:06.019 --> 38:08.379 the poem. There's a great deal about the 38:08.375 --> 38:11.095 stars. I mentioned Draco in the first 38:11.099 --> 38:15.589 section as possibly underlying the celestial serpents, 38:15.590 --> 38:19.610 a great big constellation that is across the sky for us, 38:19.614 --> 38:21.374 for us in New England. 38:21.369 --> 38:26.629 And here the goat-leaper is the constellation Capricorn. 38:26.630 --> 38:30.520 Capricorn means "goat horn," as you know. 38:30.519 --> 38:35.759 And you may also know that Capricorn begins in the zodiac 38:35.755 --> 38:40.235 on the twenty-second of December, which is to say 38:40.243 --> 38:44.173 immediately after the winter solstice. 38:44.170 --> 38:49.470 So, the constellation Capricorn takes over, comes in, 38:49.471 --> 38:55.181 at what Stevens at the end of the poem calls "in winter's 38:55.180 --> 38:58.330 nick," in the nick of winter just as 38:58.328 --> 39:02.508 the solstice comes and the constellation Capricorn becomes 39:02.511 --> 39:05.741 the dominant constellation of the zodiac. 39:05.740 --> 39:09.090 39:09.090 --> 39:14.400 But now we can't stay solemn, the mood has to change. 39:14.400 --> 39:17.830 And so we get, at the end of this section, 39:17.832 --> 39:21.522 a change from destiny to slight caprice with, 39:21.515 --> 39:25.445 I think, an allusion to the word Capricorn. 39:25.449 --> 39:30.289 And you may know that the capri element has to do 39:30.294 --> 39:33.994 with leaping, so the leaping from Heaven to 39:33.993 --> 39:36.903 Hell is associated with that. 39:36.900 --> 39:40.550 It must change from destiny to slight caprice. 39:40.550 --> 39:43.750 And thus its jetted tragedy, its stele 39:43.750 --> 39:47.040 And shape and mournful making move to find 39:47.039 --> 39:50.459 What must unmake it and, at last, what can 39:50.460 --> 39:54.170 Say, a flippant communication under the moon. 39:54.170 --> 39:56.720 So, all this is thrown away and what we have is "a flippant 39:56.722 --> 39:58.352 communication," something flippant. 39:58.349 --> 40:03.849 But that is the way Stevens's imagination works on a large 40:03.848 --> 40:07.848 scale. "The Auroras of Autumn" is not 40:07.853 --> 40:14.653 architectonically structured as, say, something like the odes of 40:14.645 --> 40:19.655 Keats and Shelley are, like "Adonais" or "The Ode on 40:19.655 --> 40:23.085 Melancholy" or "The Ode on a Grecian Urn." 40:23.090 --> 40:26.670 That is to say, it does not move by logical 40:26.674 --> 40:31.884 stages to a climax at the end that incorporates and is founded 40:31.880 --> 40:34.270 on what has gone before. 40:34.269 --> 40:37.009 Rather, it is structured, if structure is the word, 40:37.010 --> 40:38.490 as I've been telling you. 40:38.489 --> 40:40.379 You go from one thing to another. 40:40.380 --> 40:42.560 You go from one thing to its opposite. 40:42.559 --> 40:45.169 You go from something solemn to something flippant. 40:45.170 --> 40:46.920 You go from summer to autumn. 40:46.920 --> 40:51.350 You go from day to night, from the warmth of the mother 40:51.345 --> 40:54.455 to the threat of death and darkness. 40:54.460 --> 40:57.780 Nonetheless, it does move--the poem does 40:57.775 --> 41:01.765 move, toward what I would call a culmination; 41:01.769 --> 41:04.969 not an architectonic or structural climax, 41:04.972 --> 41:07.552 but a kind of emotional climax. 41:07.550 --> 41:11.090 And this happens in the next to last section, 41:11.094 --> 41:14.244 section nine, and it's predicated on the 41:14.236 --> 41:19.146 assertion of innocence at the beginning of section eight. 41:19.150 --> 41:23.130 And I should say, in case I don't have time to do 41:23.125 --> 41:27.595 justice to it at the end, that in section ten the whole 41:27.597 --> 41:29.417 thing falls apart. 41:29.420 --> 41:34.560 We discard the whole thing, and it all becomes fragmentary, 41:34.560 --> 41:39.350 and the mythical creations become trivial and we get an 41:39.346 --> 41:44.126 ending that is completely unsatisfactory to those of us 41:44.132 --> 41:48.102 who love resonant, rhetorical endings. 41:48.099 --> 41:52.479 It's just not like that and we can't look in Stevens for that 41:52.479 --> 41:55.999 kind of ending. The term "innocence" is another 41:56.004 --> 42:00.214 term, like "imagination," that has to be thought of in its 42:00.205 --> 42:01.675 Stevensian sense. 42:01.680 --> 42:07.440 42:07.440 --> 42:12.030 The opposite of innocence, for Stevens, 42:12.028 --> 42:15.408 is either guilt or malice. 42:15.409 --> 42:18.059 Now, you probably know, you may know, 42:18.059 --> 42:21.149 that the origin of the word "innocence," 42:21.150 --> 42:26.020 the root, Latin root of the word "innocence" is a Latin verb 42:26.019 --> 42:28.659 meaning to harm: noceo. 42:28.659 --> 42:33.409 So, "innocence," literally is "unharmingness." 42:33.409 --> 42:39.309 The affirmation of innocence that comes to the speaker in 42:39.312 --> 42:44.582 section eight arises, in a sense, from all that has 42:44.583 --> 42:48.113 gone before; that is, from the myth-making 42:48.107 --> 42:51.717 of the early sections because, as we think back on them, 42:51.719 --> 42:55.419 it's obvious that Stevens's overarching myths, 42:55.420 --> 42:58.710 his great cosmic myths – the mother, 42:58.710 --> 43:02.770 the father, the celestial imagination that imagines the 43:02.771 --> 43:07.361 whole world and the passage of the zodiac – none of that has 43:07.360 --> 43:11.650 anything to do with revealed religion or particularly with 43:11.648 --> 43:16.538 the Christianity that we, most of us, know so much about. 43:16.539 --> 43:20.069 As we think back, it's obvious that there's 43:20.066 --> 43:23.506 nothing in them about a benevolent God, 43:23.510 --> 43:28.070 a God who watches over us, a God who comforts us and who 43:28.067 --> 43:31.047 will reward us if we are virtuous. 43:31.050 --> 43:32.620 There's nothing about that. 43:32.619 --> 43:35.669 The Imagination, with a capital I, 43:35.674 --> 43:39.954 the cosmic Imagination is as grim as it is benevolent. 43:39.949 --> 43:43.589 The world is as grim as it is benevolent. 43:43.590 --> 43:47.560 We have the benevolence of summer but, always after it, 43:47.556 --> 43:52.106 the darkening of autumn and the grimness and cold of winter. 43:52.110 --> 43:55.610 And humanly, we have the change from youth 43:55.614 --> 44:00.234 to the midst of life to finally the coming of death. 44:00.230 --> 44:03.550 And that possibility, that inevitability, 44:03.547 --> 44:06.447 is faced, at the end of the poem. 44:06.449 --> 44:10.859 So, what is innocent here is the world. 44:10.860 --> 44:13.020 The world is innocent. 44:13.020 --> 44:16.670 It means us no harm; it is not malicious. 44:16.670 --> 44:21.220 If there's no God who benevolently watches over us, 44:21.216 --> 44:26.126 there's also no God who judges us or who consigns us to 44:26.126 --> 44:30.146 damnation. So, we can live in the world in 44:30.150 --> 44:35.470 this state of innocence without what Stevens eloquently calls 44:35.474 --> 44:40.714 – and I hope you'll check it out again after this – "the 44:40.709 --> 44:44.879 enigma of the guilty dream": Christianity. 44:44.880 --> 44:46.230 We don't understand it. 44:46.230 --> 44:48.940 It's a riddle; it's the guilty dream, 44:48.935 --> 44:52.485 but it's a dream like all other dreams. 44:52.489 --> 44:56.019 The world operates impersonally, 44:56.022 --> 44:58.532 it means us no harm. 44:58.530 --> 45:04.840 45:04.840 --> 45:08.790 Now, I'm going to read toward the end of section eight: 45:08.789 --> 45:12.409 So, then, these lights [these lights are 45:12.407 --> 45:15.057 the Aurora Borealis, which he's 45:15.059 --> 45:18.969 referred to by the phrase "these lights" several times in 45:18.972 --> 45:20.302 the poem] are not 45:20.300 --> 45:24.670 a spell of light, A saying out of a cloud, 45:24.666 --> 45:29.226 but innocence. An innocence of the earth and 45:29.229 --> 45:32.689 no false sign Or symbol of malice. 45:32.690 --> 45:37.530 That we partake thereof, Lie down like children in this 45:37.525 --> 45:39.245 holiness, As if, awake, 45:39.248 --> 45:42.108 we lay in the quiet of sleep… 45:42.110 --> 45:45.750 I haven't time to go on, but in section nine, 45:45.749 --> 45:50.219 Stevens picks up on this and says: "We were as Danes in 45:50.216 --> 45:54.596 Denmark all day long / …hale-hearted landsmen"; 45:54.600 --> 45:55.820 we were brothers. 45:55.820 --> 45:58.500 And here, we have the play Hamlet again. 45:58.500 --> 46:00.190 As you remember in Hamlet, 46:00.188 --> 46:02.878 there's something rotten in the state of Denmark. 46:02.880 --> 46:06.270 And here the world is Denmark and there's something wholesome 46:06.270 --> 46:07.740 in the state of Denmark. 46:07.739 --> 46:13.079 And what is wholesome is us and the world and the beauty of the 46:13.084 --> 46:18.434 world, even though that beauty eventually gives way to darkness 46:18.429 --> 46:21.539 and cold. "Shall we be found hanging in 46:21.536 --> 46:23.176 the trees next spring?" 46:23.179 --> 46:25.559 This is toward the end of section nine. 46:25.559 --> 46:30.229 People interpret this differently, and I think the 46:30.233 --> 46:34.713 word "hanging" is misleading, but I read it as meaning: 46:34.709 --> 46:38.169 are we going to come back in the spring as the leaves come 46:38.173 --> 46:39.513 back in the spring? 46:39.510 --> 46:42.620 And we're not. Human life is a single 46:42.615 --> 46:46.575 trajectory and has a single spring, summer, 46:46.578 --> 46:51.578 and winter, and loss in such a world is permanent. 46:51.579 --> 46:55.349 But in this world we have the splendor of the world, 46:55.354 --> 46:59.204 if we can simply see it, if we can allow ourselves to 46:59.203 --> 47:01.723 see it without preconceptions. 47:01.719 --> 47:05.439 We can see "the stars… putting on their glittering 47:05.443 --> 47:07.693 belts." This reminds me of the 47:07.690 --> 47:11.960 constellation Orion which has a glittering belt and a dagger 47:11.956 --> 47:14.906 hanging from it. "They throw around their 47:14.906 --> 47:18.516 shoulders cloaks that flash / like a great shadow's last 47:18.517 --> 47:21.407 embellishment." But now suddenly there's a 47:21.412 --> 47:23.702 change; there's a drop in the rhetoric 47:23.704 --> 47:25.944 to the utmost simplicity of language. 47:25.940 --> 47:29.720 The last tercet, three-line stanza, 47:29.718 --> 47:34.608 of section nine: "It may come tomorrow in the 47:34.609 --> 47:39.209 simplest word, / almost as part of innocence, 47:39.205 --> 47:44.045 almost, / almost as the tenderest and the truest part." 47:44.050 --> 47:47.690 "It," I am quite certain, is death. 47:47.690 --> 47:54.250 And Hamlet speaks memorable and extremely simple words when he 47:54.245 --> 47:58.155 is about to die. He's about to fight a duel in 47:58.159 --> 48:01.159 which he's going to be poisoned, and Horatio, 48:01.163 --> 48:04.443 his friend, is concerned and fears his death. 48:04.440 --> 48:08.400 And Hamlet says, "Tush, it's nothing. 48:08.400 --> 48:11.900 If it be not today, it will be tomorrow, 48:11.903 --> 48:15.683 and if it be not tomorrow it will be today, 48:15.676 --> 48:19.266 and if it be not now, it will come." 48:19.269 --> 48:21.849 And that, I think, is what is being echoed, 48:21.849 --> 48:24.609 in a sense, here: "It may come tomorrow in the 48:24.613 --> 48:28.043 simplest word." Death is almost as a part of 48:28.041 --> 48:32.241 innocence, almost as the tenderest and truest part. 48:32.239 --> 48:35.979 Well, I can say only a few words about section ten. 48:35.980 --> 48:39.040 As I say, everything goes to hell in section ten. 48:39.039 --> 48:41.699 All the great concepts are discarded. 48:41.699 --> 48:46.449 But in section ten, we do return to the concept of 48:46.450 --> 48:48.680 happiness in Stevens. 48:48.679 --> 48:54.389 We are, humanity is, an unhappy people in a happy 48:54.388 --> 48:56.728 world; that is to say, 48:56.726 --> 49:01.986 we live in a world in which there is splendor and vitality 49:01.994 --> 49:07.174 and the sun is like a jungle tuft of feathers and like an 49:07.171 --> 49:10.731 animal eye, but we're unhappy because we 49:10.727 --> 49:15.327 lack the faculty of imagination, as the "you" does in the short 49:15.326 --> 49:17.706 poem. The cosmic imagination 49:17.709 --> 49:21.779 meditates the whole thing, the history of humanity, 49:21.777 --> 49:23.727 and all of our fates. 49:23.730 --> 49:29.210 At the very end of the poem the mother reappears in degraded 49:29.212 --> 49:33.452 form as a "harridan," which means kind of an ugly, 49:33.453 --> 49:36.763 untidy old crone, and "a haggling of wind and 49:36.758 --> 49:39.358 weather." The splendors of the aurora 49:39.356 --> 49:41.616 have come to that, "by theses lights, 49:41.619 --> 49:44.949 / like a blaze of summer straw, in winter's nick." 49:44.949 --> 49:49.679 That's the last metaphor for the Aurora Borealis. 49:49.680 --> 49:53.880 "Winter's nick" is the solstice; the coming of Capricorn, 49:53.883 --> 49:57.133 the constellation, and the auroras are like "a 49:57.134 --> 50:00.534 blaze of… straw" in the midst of all that. 50:00.530 --> 50:05.650 Not a very grand image, but for Stevens this is what we 50:05.650 --> 50:08.210 have, and this is enough. 50:08.210 --> 50:12.370 And I think in a poem like "The Auroras of Autumn," he manages 50:12.372 --> 50:14.832 to convince us, at least temporarily, 50:14.828 --> 50:16.328 that it is enough. 50:16.330 --> 50:22.000 Thank you.