The Auroras of Autumn
{{Short description|1950 poetry book by Wallace Stevens}}
{{Infobox book
| name = The Auroras of Autumn
| image = File:TheAurorasOfAutumn.jpg
| caption = First edition
| author = Wallace Stevens
| illustrator =
| cover_artist =
| country = United States
| language = English
| genre = Poetry
| publisher = Alfred A. Knopf
| pub_date = September 1950
| media_type = Print
| isbn =
| preceded_by = Transport to Summer
| followed_by = Collected Poems
}}
The Auroras of Autumn is a 1950 book of poetry by Wallace Stevens. The book of poems contains the long poem of 10 cantos by Stevens of the same name.
Contents
The book features a collection of poems containing also the 1948 Stevens long poem of the same name, whose title refers to the aurora borealis, or the "Northern Lights", in the fall.{{cite web|url=http://www.enotes.com/auroras-autumn-salem/auroras-autumn|title=The Auroras of Autumn (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)|publisher=eNotes.com|accessdate =May 14, 2010}} The book collects 32 Stevens poems written between 1947 and 1950, and was his last collection before his 1954 Collected Poems.Cook, Eleanor. A Reader's Guide to Wallace Stevens (Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 237.
The long poem in the book which is titled "The Auroras of Autumn" is a 240-line poem divided into ten cantos of 24 lines each. It is considered one of Stevens' more challenging and "difficult"Unsworth, John. "[https://www.jstor.org/pss/2926402 An Echo of Baudelaire in 'The Auroras of Autumn']," American Literature vol. 60, #1 (Mar. 1988). works, and a 20th-century example of the English Romantic tradition.{{cite web|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=238068|author=Finch, Annie|title=The Poetry of Autumn: Forget spring. Fall is the season for poetry|publisher=Poetry Foundation|date=October 28, 2009}} According to critic Harold Bloom, it is Stevens' only major poem "in which he allows himself to enter in his proper person, as a kind of dramatic figure."Bloom, Harold. In "Voices & Visions - Wallace Stevens." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV7czDrb5Fc&t=1775s On this reading, the poem comes to an early climax at the end of canto VI, where Stevens describes a tension between his own imagination and a disintegrative and elusive reality, his subject:
{{poemquote|
This is nothing until in a single man contained,
Nothing until this named thing nameless is
And is destroyed. He opens the door of his house}}
{{poemquote|
On flames. The scholar of one candle sees
An Arctic effulgence flaring on the frame
Of everything he is. And he feels afraid. Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens}}
Another notable poem in the book is "The Owl in the Sarcophagus", an elegy for Stevens' best friend, Henry Church.{{cite book|author=Bloom, Harold|title=Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=1980}}.
Awards
It won the 1951 National Book Award for Poetry.
[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1951 "National Book Awards – 1951"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-02-25.
(With acceptance speech by Stevens and essay by Katie Peterson from the Awards 60-year anniversary publication.)
Notes
{{reflist}}
References
- Beckett, Lucy. Wallace Stevens (Cambridge University Press, 1974).
External links
- [http://www.times.com/books/97/12/21/home/stevens-autumn.html Review of The Auroras of Autumn in The New York Times] (September 10, 1950)
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20081007162203/http://oyc.yale.edu/english/modern-poetry/content/sessions/lecture20.html Guest lecture] focusing on the poem The Auroras of Autumn (part of Open Yale Courses).
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Category:American poetry collections
Category:Poetry by Wallace Stevens
Category:Alfred A. Knopf books
Category:National Book Award for Poetry–winning works
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