Negation
Negation - context Summary
Published in Harmonium, 1923
Published in Wallace Stevens's first book Harmonium (1923), the poem sketches a skeptical, compressed vision of creation. The creator is "blind," an overwhelmed idealist who seeks a harmonious whole by rejecting particulars. Human lives are depicted as brief responses to that force, producing ephemeral shapes—"evanescent symmetries"—from a careful but impersonal maker. The poem links creative striving with transience and the limits of mastery.
Read Complete AnalysesHi! The creator too is blind, Struggling toward his harmonious whole, Rejecting intermediate parts, Horrors and falsities and wrongs; Incapable master of all force, Too vague idealist, overwhelmed By an afflatus that persists. For this, then, we endure brief lives, The evanescent symmetries From that meticulous potter's thumb.
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