Collected Poetry x{0026} Prose

Resumen del libro

Here are all of Stevens' published books of poetry, side-by-side for the first time along with the haunting lyrics of his later years and early work that traces the development of his art. From the rococo inventiveness of Harmonium, his first volume, through "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction," "Esthétique du Mal," and the other large-scale masterpieces of his middle years, to the austere final poems of "The Rock," Stevens' poetry explores with unrelenting intensity the relation between the world and the human imagination, between nature as found and nature as invented, and the ways poetry mediates between them. The volume presents over ninety poems uncollected by Stevens, including early versions of often discussed works like "The Comedian as the Letter C" and "Owl's Clover."

Also here is the most comprehensive selection of Stevens' prose writings. The Necessary Angel (1951), his distinguished book of essays, joins nearly fifty shorter pieces, many previously uncollected: reviews, speeches, short stories, criticism, philosophical writings, and responses to the work of Eliot, Moore, Williams, and other poets. The often dazzling aphorisms Stevens gathered over the years are included, as are his plays and selections from his poetic notebooks. Rounding out the volume is a fifty-year span of journal entries and letters, newly edited from manuscript sources, which provide fascinating glimpses of Stevens' thoughts on poetry and the creative process.

The volume's editors, Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson, provide notes and a detailed chronology of Stevens' life. Frank Kermode, one of the world's leading literary critics, is King Edward VII Professor of English at Cambridge University. Joan Richardson is the author of the standard biography of the poet, published in two volumes as Wallace Stevens: The Early Years, 1879-1923 and The Later Years, 1923-1955. She is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Graduate School of the City University of New York.

Wallace Stevens' Collected Poetry and Prose has been published with support from James Merrill (1926 - 1995) and will be kept in print by a gift in his memory.

Biografía del autor

(Reading, Pensilvania, 1879 - Hartford, Connecticut, 1955) es uno de los grandes poetas norteamericanos contemporáneos, adscrito como T. S. Eliot al movimiento vanguardista de su país. Estudió en Harvard y en Nueva York, donde logró el título de abogado que le permitió abandonar el periodismo y ganarse la vida en los servicios jurídicos de varias aseguradoras. Poeta tardío, la mayor parte de su obra la escribió con más de cincuenta años. El año de su muerte recibió el Premio Pulitzer de Literatura. Estudiosos como Harold Bloom lo han reconocido como uno de los grandes poetas del siglo xx. Gran defensor de la imaginación como motor principal de la vida y de las ideas, su pasión por la belleza le llevó a ser acusado de hedonista y decadente , adjetivos que el tiempo ha ido borrando de su biografía.