Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In the discussion of high modernism in English poetry ‘the modernity’ has been mostly examined in terms of the visual dimension. Needless to say, Ezra Pound’s emphasis on the clarity of expression through the use of precise visual image set the tone of later literary criticism of how to understand the radical innovations made by Imagist poets, including Wallace Stevens. Yet, the era of high modernism is also called the Machine age, characterized by a pervasive engagement with technology. The new experiences of time and space described as ‘the modernity’ was also constructed in terms of the aural dimension. Thus, it is necessary to re-examine poetic experiments of high modernist poets in terms of the soundscape of new, urban, technological experiences that shaped the modernity. Given that Pound himself later added that “the image is not an idea. It is a radiant node or cluster; it is what I can, and must perforce, call a Vortex, from which, and through which, and into which, ideas are constantly rushing,” this paper examines how Stevens, sharing Pound’s idea of vortex, embraced the dynamism of the machine age and all things modern in his poetic techniques to suggest his perception of “life/consists of propositions of life.” In particular, I pay special attention to his interest in Eastern philosophical ideas and connect his poetic experiment in “The Man with the Blue Guitar” to his avant-gardist translation of the untranslatable Eastern notion of ‘nothingness’ into Western sound bites and soundscape.