Comparative Literature Fall 2006
CMLT C-400 (26001)
(Meets with L460)
Studies in Comparative Literature
Wallace Stevens and the Theory of Poetry
Professor Marks ,  TR 6:30-9:00
*Second Eight Weeks*



What did Stevens mean by his famous line, “the theory of poetry [is]
the life of poetry”? This seminar will explore that question through
the study of Stevens’ own work and the work of a few of the
nineteenth-century writers, in particular Emerson, Nietzsche,
Mallarmé, and the English Romantics, whose ideas informed his own.
Students will have the opportunity to read the entirety of Stevens’s
published writing, but seminar sessions will be devoted to
discussing a limited number of texts, including the great long
poems, “Notes toward a Supreme Fiction” and “The Auroras of Autumn.”
Caveat: Stevens’ work is often difficult, and the difficulty (unlike
the difficulty of, say, Eliot or Joyce) only increases on further
acquaintance. That said, no other twentieth-century poet writing in
English can teach us more or (to my mind, at least) afford us more
pleasure.

Requirements: one seminar presentation and a final paper. There is
no formal prerequisite but previous study (read, an informed love)
of English or European poetry will be assumed. Students who wish to
begin before the first session should simply start reading through
Stevens’s poems