Three Academic Pieces*
WALLACE STEVENS
T
THE REALM OF RESEMBLANCE
HE ACCURACY
of accurate letters is an accuracy with respect to
the structure of reality.
Thus, if we desire to formulate an accurate theory of poetry,
we find it necessary to examine the structure of reality, because
.reality is the central reference for poetry. By way of accomplishing
this, suppose we examine one of the significant components of the
structure of reality, that is to say, the resemblance between things.
First, then, as to the resemblance between things in nature,
it should be observed that resemblance constitutes a relation be–
tween them since, in some sense, all things resemble each other.
Take, for example, a beach extending as far as the eye can reach
bordered, on the one hand, by trees and, on the other, by the sea.
The sky is cloudless and the sun is red. In what sense do the objects
in this scene resemble each other? There is enough green in the sea
to relate it to the palms. There is enough of the sky reflected in the
water to create a resemblance, in some sense, between them. The
sand is yellow between the green and the blue. In short, the light
alone creates a unity not only in the recedings of distance, where
differences become invisible, but also in the contacts of closer sight. So,
too, sufficiently generalized, each man resembles all other men, each
woman resembles all other women, this year resembles last year. The
beginning of time will, no doubt, resemble the end of time. One
world is said to resemble another.
A moment ago the resemblance between things was spoken of
as one of the significant components of the structure of reality. It is
significant because it creates the relation just described. It binds
together. It is the base of appearance. In nature, however, the rela–
tion is between two or more of the parts of reality. In metaphor
(and this word is used as a symbol for the single aspect of poetry
with which we are now concerned, that is to say: the creation of
resemblance by the imagination, even though metamorphosis might
be a better word ) - in metaphor, the resemblance may be, first,
*
Read at Harvard in February, 1947, under the auspices of the Morris
Gray Fund.
