"The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens

[@JamesTraverseYoga]

The two word title, Snow Man, indicates that this poem is about identity. In this case the substance of being is snow that is not separate from and literally is that which is - it is the thing itself. 'One must have a mind OF winter'/'been cold a long time means' the maturity of a meditative mind that regards/beholds, sees/feels what is as it is ['not to think'] 'that is blowing in the same bare place' means Silence expressing itself as Sound - 'nothing himself' [Silence], 'beholds Nothing that is not there' [not adding any content via mental activity/thinking] 'and the nothing that is' [Sound]. In other words the poem says that true identity is Silence Sound - Snow Man

[@timbowers4250]

James Traverse I love your interpretation

[@onnamamouna4630]

I appreciate ur explanation but helps a lot In my presentation

[@richardweil293]

Always nice to have one paragraph pointing to the related paradox of silence- sound/snow-man which may have interpretive truth but is too limited in scope. The reader/poet is trying to access the imagination which is productive or creative rather than just re-productively mimetic. That access is available only through light reflected from the reader poet not the sensations or stereotypes such as thinking of misery in the sound of the wind. The Junipers and the Spruces have a richness of wonder and beauty especially in winter.

[@bonnieparkins8691]

I think this is a very complex sentence and one must read the whole sentence to get the meaning of it, which is just the opposite of what you are saying. Simplify it like this: you'd have to have a blank cold mind (a mind of winter), in fact, you'd have to be dead (been cold a long time) not to think of misery under these particular circumstances. Looking at the ice and snow on the trees and listening to the desolate wind, one is compelled to describe the scene and think of misery. The poet both describes and thinks and his reader, his listener, "in the snow" now with the poet is able to see, through the poet, the scene just as it is, described fully,sees everything (nothing that is not there) that is in the scene (the scene which made the poet think of misery) and because of the poet's IDEAS which he brought to the poem, which are not THINGS, the listener beholds the "no thing" that is also there, i.e. the ideas inspired in the poet by the beautiful, cold, and desolate scene. Very skillfully accomplished, Stevens presents a conundrum, tricks the "listener" into changing his mind several times as clauses are added to the poem. At first it seems like he is exhorting you to have a mind of winter ("one must...") in order to see the concrete spectacle of winter, but as the sentence continues ("and NOT think of any misery"), you realize, after trying it out, that you cannot have a mind of winter, we don't have a mind of winter, we are, in fact, feeling, thinking -- as well as seeing and hearing-- beings, we are NOT Snow Men. The listener is not a thing ("nothing himself") but he is able, by his humanity, to see all the things physically present and also able to bring to the scene the feelings and ideas his mind brings to the scene. The listener and the poet are one.

[@haroldackerman3964]

The Snow Man is simply the mind bereft of imagination. "Man Carrying Thing" begins with the statement, "The poem must resist the intelligence almost successfully." "The Snow Man," a similarly wintery poem, demonstrates this line and works out in snowy terms the salient feature of Stevens' aesthetic. He came at some point to believe that our religion, our art, our legends have at their root a single activity: that of the mind trying to find an order in the actual world, a sense of beauty, something "which would suffice." In this dynamic, the imagination plays the principal role. Stevens does not credit reason with such a role. "The Snow Man" expresses Stevens' aesthetic from the negative side, as the snow figure stands there empty of feeling and idea. Rather, it is the long sentence, the construction of the poem itself, weaving and moving about the figure, which provides meaning. Yeats said that he made a poem "out of a mouthful of air." Stevens might say, "out of a mound of snow."

[@debashritadash9878]

This was very helpful, thanks a lot!

[@susanlord1745]

Wonderfully explained. Thanks.

[@bontomax]

Why is it broken into three line stanzas? Why are the enjambments worthwhile if the whole thing runs into a whole sentence anyway? Is there any kind of regular meter? Is this a form Stevens devised himself?

[@sansumida]

Because then we know it is a poem. Stevens operates in a tradition of influences of past poets, so there are resonances and expectations set up. It's all a bit meta, as Stevens subverts the pathetic fallacy. Such a great poet!

[@00Emerald00]

The last line troubles me