Anatomy of Monotony

"Anatomy of Monotony" is a poem from the second, 1931, edition of Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. Unlike most of the poems in this collection, it was first published in 1931, so it is restricted by copyright until 2025 in America and similar jurisdictions, because of legislation like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. However, it is quoted here in full, as justified by fair use for the purpose of scholarly commentary.

The poet conceives us as evolving and increasingly civilized products of an earthly process. Indeed the earth itself is growing and growing old, while we sport our complex bodies and venture ever more sophisticated desires. Human experience is a kind of illusion engendered by our evolved sense organs, vulnerable to "the mother's death" and the cold death of the universe. The spirit sees this and is aggrieved, for it would harbor experience in some place that transcends nature, free from the contingencies of earth and universe.

The poem can be read as ironic, as calling into question the pretension of `the spirit'. This reading is supported by the naturalistic tenor of the Harmonium collection as a whole, and specifically by the parallel of Invective Against Swans. The desire for transcendence of nature is one of those "finer, more implacable chords" that the poet disavows, as also in Sunday Morning.