How all of literary criticism is embodied in "The Idea of Order at Key West" by Wallace Stevens

"The Idea of Order at Key West"

Aristotle/Plato: Art is all mimesis: STevens refutes the idea that art is mimesis.  He states that "the song and water were not medleyed sound" implying that the song - her art - is not like the sea, her supposed model.  "For she was the maker of the sound she sang/The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea/was merely a place by which she walked to sing."  The sea was not her inspiration.

Longinus: What is sublime?  "It was her voice that made/The sky acutest at its vanishing.  She measured the hour its solitude/She was the single artificer of the world/In which she sang, the sea,/Whatever self it had, became the self/That was her song."  To me this is the sublime.  It has great thoughts - the sea and the world coming together in an art form.  Strong emotion - this has to be strong emotion if the sea, whatever self it had becamse her song.  She is singing her heart out!  This is gorgeous, beyond words.

Sir Philip Sydney: The poet confers immortality upon us: Now we will never forget the name Ramon Fernandez (even though none of us has a damn clue who he is).  Stevens conferred immortality upon Ramon Fernandez: "Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon"

Samuel Johnson: The function of literature is to make you a better person: The woman by the sea raises questions for Stevens and Ramon.  They know "as [they] beheld her striding there alone,/Knew that there never was a world for her/Except the one she sang and, singing, made."  They come away from this experience with new knowledge.  They know more about art and life.  Stevens calls to RAmon and ask, "Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,/Why, when the singing ended and we turned/Toward the town...the glassy lights...mastered the night and portioned out the sea."  Stevens wants to know about himself and what has made him see the world in this new way.  He's making an effort to question in order to make himself a better person.

"What did you learn, Ramon Fernandez?  Tell me!!!"

Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world: "She was the single artificer of the world in which she sang."  She created the world, so obviously, she can control it.  "It may be that...all her phrases stirred/The grinding water and the gasping wind."  She is moving the water, controlling the environment and engaging in a little pathetic fallacy.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The artist holds great powers: Imagination is a god like power for Shelley and "She was the maker of the song she sang."  Stevens understands the god-like power of the artist when he says that "She was the single artificer of the world/In which she sang."  The artist has created a whole world that she controls through her song.

TO BE CONTINUED!

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