“"Poking around in the dust of Asia" : Wallace Stevens, modernism, and the aesthetics of the East” (Publication, 2009)
Year
2009
Text
Zuber, Devin. "Poking around in the dust of Asia" : Wallace Stevens, modernism, and the aesthetics of the East. In : Orient and Orientalisms in US-American poetry and poetics. Sabine Sielke, Christian Kloeckner (eds.). (Frankfurt a.M. : Land, 2009). (SteW12)
Type
Publication
Mentioned People (1)
Stevens, Wallace
(Reading, Penn. 1879-1955 Hartford, Conn.) : Dichter, Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, Anwalt
Subjects
Literature : Occident : United States of America
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References / Sources
Chronology Entries (1)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1897-1955 |
Wallace Stevens and China : general Quellen : Beal, Samuel. Buddhism in China [ID D8373]. Binyon, Laurence. Painting in the Far East [ID D21512]. Duthuit, Georges. Chinese mysticism and modern painting [ID D30303]. Exhibition of Chinese sculpture, Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) to Sung (A.D. 960-1279) [ID D30325]. Fenollosa, Ernest. Epochs of Chinese and Japanese art [ID D5101]. Hackney, Louise Wallace. Guide-posts to Chinese painting [ID D30326]. Okakura, Kakuzô. The book of tea [ID D30306]. Okakura, Kakuzô. The ideals of the East [ID D30304]. Pope, Arthur. An introduction to the language of drawing and painting [ID D30305]. 1925 Munson, Gorham B. The dandyism of Wallace Stevens. In : Dial ; vol. 79 (Nov. 1925). Because of this tranquility, this well-fed and well-booted dandyism of contentment, Mr. Stevens has been called Chinese. Undeniably, he has been influenced by Chinese verse, as he has been by French verse, but one must not force the comparison. For Chinese poetry as a whole rests upon great humanistic and religious traditions : its quiet strength and peace are often simply by-products of a profound understanding ; its epicureanism is less an end, more a function, than the tranquility – may I say – the decidedly American tranquility of Wallace. 1993 Lloyd Haft : It is difficult to imagine a modern American poet whose work would be more difficult to translate into Chinese than that of Wallace Stevens. His esthetic, in which anything like rational understandability seems almost taboo and which continually prefers 'gaiety' or 'gaudiness' to the flat, spare, quasi-'objective' sound affected by many of his contemporaries, poses nightmares even for the native reader seeking comprehension. From the translator's point of view, another troublesome feature of Stevens' poetic world is that his central subjects, the 'mind' and the 'imagination', are terms more specific to the English language than many readers realize. 2003 Qian Zhaoming : Wallace Stevens's Chan-like notions are directly linked to his lifelong interest in Chan art. In Bevis, William W. Mind of winter : Wallace Stevens, meditation, and literature. (Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), William Bevis states, "A number of Stevens' poems seem not only to use meditative issues and points of view, but also to imitate the structure of meditative experience, an advanced, sensate meditative experience that follows the middle way." For Bevis, Stevens's use of meditation is no proof for direct exchange with Chan. To quote his words, "Stevens seems to have arrived at his knowledge without significant help from Buddhists, scientists, or orientalists." In my view, Stevens's innate meditative detachment not only clarifies his well-known fascination with Chan art, but also multiplies the likelihood of an intimate transaction with its message. Chan art is designed to invite viewers to enter into it and lose themselves to its outlook. Stevens's habit of looking at things with meditative detachment almost ensures his entry into the nothing or the no-mind state of Chan art with the thing itself perceived. Okakura's The ideals of the East offers accounts of the origin of Chan, its emphasis on meditation, its disrespect for rituals, and, above all, what it means by 'suchness' . Binyon's Painting in the Far East similarly elaborates on Chan art. The essay on The noble features of the forest and the stream gives a superb insight into the Chan belief that people can enjoy 'the luxuries of nature' even 'without stepping out of their houses'. It was Chan painting that played a principal role in elevating Stevens' detachment to a higher level of meditative experience. One is offered three ways to grasp Chan : visual, verbal, and actional. Stevens was involved in all three during his formative years. It was his own meditative nature that inspired his to pursue Chan art. From there he moved on to read about Chan Buddhism. 2007 Huang, Xiaoyan. Guo jia she ke ji jin ke ti de jie duan xing cheng guo zhi yi. [ID D30293]. As a modern American poet, Wallace Stevens apparently assimilated the Chinese Cultural heritage in his poetry writing. We can sense the influences of Chinese culture here and there in his poems, essays, letters and journals as well. This paper attempts to explore the relations between Stevens and China, to analyze Chinese Daoism and the spirit of Chinese art absorbed in his poetry creating, and to find a new way to interpret Stevens and his poems. 2009 Devin Zuber : Stevens assembled a private art collection that included Japanese and Chinese prints, paintings, and Buddhist statues, as well as an impressive array of costly exhibition catalogues on Oriental art, in addition to numerous other books related to Buddhism and Eastern religions. Stevens shared with Zen Buddhism a deep skepticism towards language as a system of representation ; one reason Zen painting developed as a kind of didactic tool in the way that it did stemmed from a strong conviction that words were woefully inadequate for the totality of experience. |
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Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2000- | Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich | Organisation / AOI |
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