Aaron, sorry not to have come back sooner to these threads, all three of which are fascinating. Very busy right now, so I'm really just looking in to say I will come back and comment at proper length soon.
I will just say that with Stevens these grand proclamations will often be blithely turned on their heads; so "Man is the intelligence of his soil" later becomes "His soil is man's intelligence"... That said it is interesting how many poems turn crucially on such apparently lapidary aphorisms: "Death is the mother of beauty"; "The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream"...
Anyway, much to think about here... Will be back.
|