So-and-so Reclining on Her Couch
So-and-so Reclining on Her Couch - meaning Summary
Perception Versus Artistic Projection
The poem examines the gap between perception and artistic construction by presenting an anonymous reclining woman as successive "projections": sensory appearance, imagined crown, and the artist’s arranged composition. Stevens contrasts the thing-in-itself with the idea of the thing, suggesting the subject is partly made by creative vision yet resists full ownership. The closing farewell acknowledges both the artist’s desire and a relinquishing of claims to complete creation.
Read Complete AnalysesOn her side, reclining on her elbow. This mechanism, this apparition, Suppose we call it Projection A. She floats in air at the level of The eye, completely anonymous, Born, as she was, at twenty-one, Without lineage or language, only The curving of her hip, as motionless gesture, Eyes dripping blue, so much to learn. If just above her head there hung, Suspended in air, the slightest crown Of Gothic prong and practick bright, The suspension, as in solid space, The suspending hand withdrawn, would be An invisible gesture. Let this be called Projection B. To get at the thing Without gestures is to get at it as Idea. She floats in the contention, the flux Between the thing as idea and The idea as thing. She is half who made her. This is the final Projection C. The arrangement contains the desire of The artist. But one confides in what has no Concealed creator. One walks easily The unpainted shore, accepts the world As anything but sculpture. Good-bye Mrs. Pappadopoulos, and thanks.
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