February 12, 2008

RATIONALISTS, WEARING SQUARE HATS.

The last of the Six Significant Landscapes by Wallace Stevens:

          VI
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses—
As for example, the ellipse of the half-moon—
Rationalists would wear sombreros.
Early Stevens is irresistible.

Posted by languagehat at February 12, 2008 09:31 PM
Comments

Looking at the whole poem, I changed all the masculine words with feminine, and feminine with masculine, and found it works, adding a surreal twistiness. I do get tired of being an embodiment of darkness and emblematic of dualism in men's poetry.

Posted by: zhoen at February 13, 2008 11:47 AM

Yeah, and the problem is a lot worse with Symbolist poetry, where every fucking thing is represented by some Dark/Unknown/Beautiful Lady or other.

Posted by: language hat at February 13, 2008 02:35 PM

And don't let's even get fucking started about Goddamn Shakespeare and his miserable arsing sonnets.

Posted by: Matt at February 15, 2008 07:08 AM

Luckily I missed all these nuances and rather liked the poem.

Posted by: Graham Asher at February 17, 2008 04:07 PM