Wallace Stevens seduces us in The Snow Man with provocation. In the first line he challenges us with the idea that we, the reader, "must" be of a certain mind in order to experience a particular wintry scene. It's as if he's suggesting that in no other frame of mind can one be in order to intercept the visceral effects of a certain type of landscape. This is enticement, getting us to question whether Stevens in fact is correct. Our interest is piqued. Who is Stevens to make such a bold statement about what I should or should not have for a mind, we ask ourselves. Provocation is a form of seduction. By drawing us into the debate, we are prodded to read on. The entire poem lacks seductive language per se. Using words and phrases like frost, crusted with snow, cold, jagged, rough, distant, misery, bare, and nothing are clearly intended to evoke a feeling of darkness. So how could one seduce a reader by making him feel miserable? The seduction is in the fact that we are entranced by the effect the words have. Even if you have never stood in such a barren, lifeless landscape, you can't help but feel its effects because of Steven's use of those words. Poetry is all about the language, and the seduction comes with the assembly of those words into a pattern that forces us to read on, to want to know what comes next.
You definitely have something here. People say, "You always want what you can't have", or believe in the tactic of ignoring or putting down those who you are in fact pursuing for sex or a relationship.
ReplyDeleteI think that this idea of the power of denial is not all Greek to the Greeks. Socrates was known to have said, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing", and what is more infuriatingly seductive than the smartest man you know claiming to have no knowledge?
Plato claimed that in order to learn the true forms of things, one would have to study for the better part of a lifetime, which may have been a turnoff for some, but clearly was quite the opposite for Plato's many followers. Likewise, some who pick up "The Snow Man" probably have no interest in acquiring a mind of winter, whereas I seriously considered bundling up and sitting outside for several hours to see if I could get myself there.
Seduction by provocation or denial is a dangerous tool. Those who use it, or catch themselves responding to it should think critically about why it works, and how it could be used to gain an advantage where none is deserved. Does Stevens claim to have a mind of winter, or is the poem almost theoretical in that sense? Did Socrates really believe that he knew nothing, or is he just trying to get a rise out of someone?
I Think Stevens also sparks are interest in what he means by the state of mind. Do we poses this "mind of winter," can we understand the point of his poem?
ReplyDeleteIt's a challenge, and the hard part is we'll never know if we are right in Stevens mind. It is one of those truths that James speaks of when he brings up the notion that we might not know when we have reached the truth.