The Necessary Angel

By Wallace Stevens

Book Overview

In this collection of essays, consummate poet Wallace Stevens reflects upon his art. His aim is not to produce a work of criticism or philosophy, or a mere discussion of poetic technique. As he... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: B001JYCTVY
• Release Date: January 1951
• Publisher: Vintage
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Trust the tale not the teller

Few are the great poets who construct a critical edifice worthy of bearing attention similar to that of their poetry. Wordsworth and Coleridge do this in 'The Lyrical Ballads' and Keats does it in his Letters. Stevens a poet of extraordinary exuberance and richness constructs in these essays a kind of master -guide to own aesthetic and fundamental principles. His conception of a Reality- forming Imagination capable of transforming what it senses into supreme fictions, hints at what his own Art is all about. But the line - by- line beauty of his poetry and its deep transforming often hypnotic music have no real parallel in his prose. Prose explains and poetry reveals more than any explanation can give. The Essays can be a help to the reader of the Poetry, but it is the Poetry that it is the Essential Art.