LITERATURE ESSAY

Literature Essay

Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind' and Wallace Stevens the Snow Man

Snow man

"The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens is a poem which creates a unique dramatic, situation through an effective imagery, and which compels the reader to employ another way of thinking in order to both understand the poem and realize its very theme. Each foot varies: the poem becomes a combination of iambs ("the frost,” and not,” sound,” that is"), trochees ("winter,” glitter,"), anapaests ("to regard,” to behold,” of the land"), dactyls ("junipers"), and others that are not of this kind ("that is blowing" - unstressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed). Also, each line has either 3 or 4 feet, and the variation per stanza is not even regular. (Wallace 2002)

This very structure actualizes the opening line of the poem, which calls for "one [to] has the mind of winter."The title suggests that this is actually the mind of"the snow man." By reading and reciting the poem, one gets the sense of assuming another mind whose thoughts are contained in the rest of the poem. The poem's structure allows this by imitating the normal way of thought, which normally does not come in complete sentences, nor in rhymes or regular rhythm. Instead, mind activity is usually a "stream of consciousness," a continuous and an uninterrupted flow of thought. Thus, the structure is appropriate for the poem, and its theme - that of leaving behind one's own mind and assuming another's - is revealed. One question that may arise with this function of the structure is this: if the poem really was meant to imitate the mind's flow of thought, then why did the poet not write the poem in just one long line instead of dividing it into five tercets of three lines each? The answer to this is another function of the structure, which is creating the poem's mood and tone. The dramatic situation is set on a cold and quiet winter day, with very little movement in the surroundings. The poem itself should be the same - gentle and unhurried, almost poignant - and it does achieve this through the necessary pauses after lines and stanzas. Other parts in which the poem is given this mood and tone include the fourth line of the poem. Actually, this line acts as a supplement for the first line, as having "the mind of winter" is linked to "[being] cold a long time." It placed here instead of being situated immediately after the first line provides a further "slowing down" of the poem itself.

Moreover, the use of one-syllable stressed words, as well as the use of assonance with the long "o" sound ("cold...long"), makes the flow of the poem slower, also reinforcing the very idea of the "long time." The same idea of one-syllable stressed words and assonance is true for the last words of the third and fourth stanza: "few leaves," and "same bare place," respectively. (Pack 1958)

The support for the established theme, mood, and tone is ...