To The One Of Fictive Music

"To The One Of Fictive Music" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, "Harmonium." It was first published in 1922, so it is in the public domain. [Butell, p. 245] Stevens, the musical imagist, invokes the muse of poetry for "an image that is sure" in a kind ofmusic that "gives motion to perfection more serene" than other forms of music summoned by the human condition.The poet aims at a kind of simplicity and spurns "the venom of renown". The poet's muse might be compared in these respects to Socrates' philosophical muse. Socrates condemned the sophists, and Stevens's queen rejects vices analogous to theirs in poetry. The dim view of renown poetically reinforcesthe "Adagia" dictum, "Poetry is, (and should be,) for the poet, a source of pleasure and satisfaction,not a source of honors." [Kermode and Richardson, p. 915]

There is a heaviness in the human condition that poetry and other forms of inspiration alleviate. (See for instance the human, "heavy and heavy", in The Wind Shifts. Also the malady in Banal Sojourn.) The poet "muses the obscure" in what is near to us, vaunting the clearest bloom among those offeredby the "sisterhood of the living dead". This way of characterizing the various muses may emphasize humanity's mortality and limited powers.

But the nearness is not idiosyncratic. "Poetry is not personal," as Stevens writes in "Adagia". [Kermode and Richardson, p. 902] And the clearness is not too clear. The poet's musician resists the intellect,"saving a little to endow our feignings with the strange unlike". This is an expression of the "Adagia" thesis that poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully. [Kermode and Richardson, p. 910.]

The poem concludes with a reminder of the musical imagist's serious purpose. The poetic musician wears a band "set with fatal stones".

Notes

References

• Buttel, Robert. "Wallace Stevens: The Making of Harmonium". 1967: Princeton University Press.
• Kermode, Frank and Joan Richardson, "Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose". 1997: The Library of America.