90
PARTISAN REVIEW
verb
mulct.
But I think this word is disinfected of its violent con–
notation of depriving someone of something by the fact that it is
not a term in current usage. The archaic quality of the word softens
its finality. And when I note that actions are further qualified
in
Stevens's poems by such words as
bland, dainty, facile, voluble, deli·
cate
and
placid,
I think I find support for my view that the activities
with which Stevens's poems deal are of an easy-going and non–
drastic character.
Strengthening this impression is the fact that there are so many
objects which may
be
classified as dear or desirable to the com·
fortable idler: pianos, mandolins, guitars, banjos. There are, and
in abundance, chocolates, caramels, licorice, ice creams, fruits of all
descriptions, perfumes and parasols; there are of birds, the toucan,
the jay, the tanninger, the flamingo, the swan, the parakeet and the
parrot, birds curious and colorful that, like works of art, have dis·
traction value. Nor are works of art missing. And there are statues
and parks.
Stevens's poems are heavily pigmented. He has an extensive
palette, and a feeling not only for blue, green, red, etc., fairly com·
mon in poetry nowadays, but
also
for rasberry, jelly-yellow, choco–
late, turquoise, purple, gold-vermillion, pink and iris. Comparing
Stevens's use of color with that of the French genius, Arthur Rim·
baud, I find a contrast sharp enough to be worth noting. Rimbaud
was as ardent a colorist as Stevens, though his palette was rather
more limited and conventional. But what strikes one in Rimbaud is
the violent and explosive effects he managed to produce with his
limited color range. For him, color symbolized the violence of reality;
in his verses colors are like the banners of the metaphysical, mobiliz·
ing our sensibility for violent exertions. With his infinitely less re–
stricted range of colors, Stevens produces the most opposite effects;
decor.ative patterns, arabesques, fleeting and evanescent shades. To
point the contrast, let me say that in Rimbaud, colors are not at all
on the surfaces of things but seem to emanate from the depths of
their material structure, while in Stevens's poetry colors are costumes,
skillfully designed, artfully applied.
And the moods of Stevens's poems are meditative and leisurely,
with the lack of tension characteristic of someone whose spiritual
problem is to ehoose between alternatives of sensuous enjoyment. And
