The Plot Against the Giant
The Plot Against the Giant - context Summary
Published in Harmonium, 1918
This short dramatic lyric appears in Wallace Stevens's first collection, Harmonium (1918). Three female speakers describe running before a yokel and disarming him by scent, colorful cloths, and soft speech. The poem stages a playful, theatrical plot in compact stanzas, emphasizing sensory strategies—odor, visual pattern, and sound—to unsettle or transform an outsider. Its brevity and voice-driven structure reflect Stevens's early modernist experiments.
Read Complete AnalysesFirst Girl When this yokel comes maundering, Whetting his hacker, I shall run before him, Diffusing the civilest odors Out of geraniums and unsmelled flowers. It will check him. Second Girl I shall run before him, Arching cloths besprinkled with colors As small as fish-eggs. The threads Will abash him. Third Girl Oh, la...le pauvre! I shall run before him, With a curious puffing. He will bend his ear then. I shall whisper Heavenly labials in a world of gutturals. It will undo him.
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