In Wallace Steven’s poem entitled the “The Idea of Order at Key West,” he discusses the role of poetry and role of the poet as a maker. I read recently an article that tried to compare this creative process. I wasn’t really feeling authors groove. Thankfully, I found someone who did.
In his article entitled “Stevens’ The Idea of Order at Key West”, Raymond A. Younis goes against what he calls “attempts” at trying to compare Stevens’ poem to the book of Genesis.
He starts out his article by pointing out how the attempted parallels made between Stevens’ poem and Genesis are wrong for two reasons. According to Younis, it is well documented that Stevens a fan of Nietzsche and thus not your most religious and also that their aren’t any real indicators in the poem that this is clear. Younis then continues by discussing what he believes to be the real meaning behind the poem. He states that he’s sees the creative process in the poem as not divine but completely human. Younis describes how the singer is given the human form of a woman and how her song is representative of “the creative impulse and the desire for order” (Younis). He compares this focus on a human creative as derivative of Nietzsche’s statement of God is dead that is found in his work The Joyful Wisdom also titled The Gay Science. He continues by comparing the Stevensian development of the self to Nietzsche’s Ubermench in that they both involve raising oneself above it all through creativity. This also ties into Nietzsche’s ideas of man as the arbiter of the real. This fits perfectly with how Stevens’ singer in the poem creates her own reality to her own standards.
Younis finishes his review by further pointing how the human creative is completely different than the divine creative act. Younis states that Stevens’ creation wasn’t a divine one like genesis. This is because, according to Younis, divine creation is void of any difficulty struggle or travail. He also points out that divine creation makes reality look “completely coextensive.” Younis then states that Stevens’ creators are characterized by struggle, limitation, and frustration which are all very human emotions. These also, according to Younis, represent the rage to order that characterizes Stevens’ poem. He also closes by pointing how human creation is an ongoing process unlike processes of creation that are devine.
Robert Frost (left) and Wallace Stevens (right) at the Casa Marina Hotel in Key West, Florida.