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The Auroras of Autumn  
Author(s) Wallace Stevens
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Poetry
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date September, 1950
Preceded by Transport to Summer
Followed by Collected Poems

The Auroras of Autumn is a 1950 book of poetry by Wallace Stevens. It won the 1951 National Book Award for Poetry.

It features the 1948 Stevens poem of the same name, whose title refers to the Aurora Borealis, or the "Northern Lights", in the fall.[1]

The book collects 32 Stevens poems written between 1947 and 1950, and was his last collection before his 1954 Collected Poems.[2]

Poems[]

"The Auroras of Autumn" is a 240-line poem divided into ten sections of 24 lines each. It is considered one of Stevens' more challenging and "difficult" works,[3] and a classic example of the English Romantic tradition.[4]

Another notable poem in the book is The Owl in the Sarcophagus, an elegy for Stevens' best friend, Henry Church.[5]

Contents[]

  1. The Auroras of Autumn (I-X)
  2. Page from a Tale
  3. Large Red Man Reading
  4. This Solitude of Cataracts
  5. In the Element of Antagonisms
  6. In a Bad Time
  7. The Beginning
  8. The Countryman
  9. The Ultimate Poem Is Abstract
  10. Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight
  11. The Owl in the Sarcophagus
  12. Saint John and the Back-Ache
  13. Celle Qui Fût Héaulmiette
  14. Imago 59
  15. A Primitive like an Orb
  16. Metaphor as Degeneration
  17. The Woman in Sunshine
  18. Reply to Papini
  19. The Bouquet
  20. World without Peculiarity
  21. Our Stars Come from Ireland
  22. The Westwardness of Everything
  23. Puella Parvula
  24. The Novel
  25. What We See Is What We Think
  26. A Golden Woman in a Silver Mirror
  27. The Old Lutheran Bells at Home
  28. Questions Are Remarks
  29. Study of Images (I-II)
  30. An Ordinary Evening in New Haven (I-XXXI)
  31. Things of August (I-X)
  32. Angel Surrounded by Paysans

References[]

  • Beckett, Lucy. Wallace Stevens (Cambridge University Press, 1974).

Notes[]

  1. "The Auroras of Autumn (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)". eNotes.com. http://www.enotes.com/auroras-autumn-salem/auroras-autumn. Retrieved May 14, 2010. 
  2. Cook, Eleanor. A Reader's Guide to Wallace Stevens (Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 237.
  3. Unsworth, John. "An Echo of Baudelaire in 'The Auroras of Autumn'," American Literature vol. 60, #1 (Mar. 1988).
  4. Finch, Annie (October 28, 2009). "The Poetry of Autumn: Forget spring. Fall is the season for poetry,". Poetry Foundation. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=238068. 
  5. Bloom, Harold (1980). Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate. Cornell University Press. .

External links[]

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