Lunar Paraphrase

"Lunar Paraphrase" is a poem from the second (1931) edition of
Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry,"Harmonium." One of Stevens's"war poems" from "Lettres d'un Soldat" (1918), it is in the publicdomain. [In a letter to his wife in 1918 he alludes to "LunarParaphrase" as one of his "war-poems". That remark is footnoted byHolly Stevens, the editor of "Letters of Wallace Stevens", as follows:

"Lettres d'un Soldat," "Poetry", XII (May 1918), 59-65. According tothe "Wallace Stevens Checklist", by Samuel French Morse, JacksonR. Bryer, and Joseph N. Riddel (Denver: Alan Swallow; 1963), p. 54:"None of these poems was reprinted in the first edition of "Harmonium"."The 1931 edition of "Harmonium" contains the following poems from thegroup as separate entities: "The Surprises of the Superhuman" (C.P.,98); "Negation" (C.P., 97-8); "The Death of a Soldier," which was inPoetry as "Life contracts and death is expected" (C.P., 97); and"Lunar Paraphrase" (C.P., 107), which Miss Monroe did notinclude [in the "Poetry" printing] . Other poems from the group may befound in O.P., 10-16. (See also O.P., xix, for a comment by SamuelFrench Morse.)

]

The poem makes use of a late autumn night to express a mood. Itappropriates Christian images in a manner that is consistent with anaturalism that disclaims religious belief. (See Sunday Morningfor another expression of that outlook.) Stevens's post-Christiansensibility channels emotions into nature rather than God andassociated religious figures like Jesus and Mary. In this case,pathos and pity are channeled into autumn and the moon. Vendler hasproposed that the weather is the only phenomenon to which Stevens waspassionately attached, [See the main Harmonium essay, the section"The Musical Imagist".] and a poem like "Lunar Paraphrase" shows howthat might be true, when the weather is understood as representingnature as a focus for emotions that otherwise might have beenbeen given religious expression. Stevens's poetic naturalism was asignificant achievement, from which he may or may not have retreatedat the end of his life, depending on what one makes of the evidence ofa death-bed conversion to Catholicism.

The movement of the moon's old light may be compared to the light in
Tattoo, which crawls over the water like a spider.

Notes

References

• Stevens, H. "Letters of Wallace Stevens". 1966: Alfred A. Knopf