94
PARTISAN REVIEW
"What would the boys
in
the office think of me
if
they saw me
here?" But throughout the writing of
Harmonium, Ideas of
Order,
The Man with the Blue Guitar,
the professionally skilled maker,
whose craft was called upon by Stevens in his moments of inspired
leisure, was kept in the background, negated, undervalued, snubbed
even, and, I submit, had to be so treated for Stevens's performance
to be of the very first quality. Consider the spiritual tension needed
for the poet to maintain over a long period such non-recognition of
his own acts of craftsmanship. But whoever said that masterpieces
are created easily?
In modem times the poet has tended to be essentially a profes–
sional, and this has meant what is certainly an over-valuation of
all
the formal problems of poetic technique. In the discussions of Eliot
and his disciples, even the question of belief has been often treated
as a question of technique, as if what a poet believed were most
importa'.lt of all with respect to its effect on his poetry and had a
craft meaning rather than a human one. So considered, all beliefs
tend to become beliefs about poetry, even when they seem to
be
beliefs about God, history, civilization, etc. Now the poetry of Stevens
is refreshingly free from what has become the prevailing atmosphere
of modem poetry, characterized by the efforts of poets to vindicate
their
vocation
as a serious and important one. Presenting himself
before the world as a non-professional, Stevens was free to concen·
trate on the purely pleasurable content of his art.
If
he denied
him–
self the enjoyment of the poet's public role, he on the other hand
seems to have enjoyed poetry as no other modem poet has done.
But can Stevens also have been a
total
poet? Is there not a
deeper contradiction between the total poet ,and the amateur than
between the amateur poet and the professional? Perhaps not.
What
if Stevens elected to be an amateur so that his relation to poetry could
be a more complete one than that implied by a professional career?
What
if
it w,as
for the sake of poetry itself
that he refused to extend
the first privilege to the problems of poetry as a craft, as a technique,
as a carefully pursued study of verbal structures, as "work"-all of
which constitutes the professional poet's intense and constant con–
cern? In an interview with a
Times
reporter, Stevens remarked
that
he never rewrote a poem beyond the point where work on it became
"forced labor," which shows us that his amateur's attitude was pres-
