Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.
Wallace Stevens | |
|---|---|
Stevens in 1948 | |
| Born | October 2, 1879 Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | August 2, 1955 (aged 75) Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Education | Harvard University New York Law School |
| Period | 1914–1955 |
| Literary movement | Modernism |
| Notable works | Harmonium The Idea of Order at Key West The Man with the Blue Guitar The Auroras of Autumn Of Modern Poetry |
| Notable awards | Robert Frost Medal (1951) |
| Spouse |
Elsie Viola Kachel (m. 1909) |
| Children | 1 |
| Signature | |
Stevens's first period of writing begins with the 1923 publication of Harmonium, followed by a slightly revised and amended second edition in 1930. His second period occurred in the 11 years immediately preceding the publication of his Transport to Summer, when Stevens had written three volumes of poems including Ideas of Order, The Man with the Blue Guitar, and Parts of a World, along with Transport to Summer. His third and final period began with the publication of The Auroras of Autumn in the early 1950s, followed by the release of his Collected Poems in 1954, a year before his death.
Stevens's best-known poems include "The Auroras of Autumn", "Anecdote of the Jar", "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock", "The Emperor of Ice-Cream", "The Idea of Order at Key West", "Sunday Morning", "The Snow Man", and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird".