The Necessary Angel

In this collection of essays, consummate poet Wallace Stevens reflects upon his art. His aim is not to produce a work of criticism or philosophy, or a mere discussion of poetic technique. As he explains in his introduction, his ambition in these various pieces, published in different times and places, aimed higher than that, in the direction of disclosing "poetry itself, the naked poem, the imagination manifesting itself in its domination of words." Stevens proves himself as eloquent and scintillating in prose as in poetry, as he both analyzes and demonstrates the essential act of repossessing reality through the imagination.I. The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words

II. The Figure of the Youth as Noble Poet

III. Three Academic Pieces

IV. About One of Marianne Moore's Poems

V. Effects of Analogy

VI. Imagination as Value

VII. The Relations between Poetry and Painting"Few poets have written so characteristically about their own craft." --Perspective-U.S.A.

"These are rich essays, simply constructed yet richly and elegantly written." -- Hayden Carruth, The Nation

"The most welcome attribute of the book is its humane good sense, equally manifest whether Stevens is discussing a desolate Pennsylvania churchyard, Plato's images or the personalities of those who prefer 'a drizzle in Venice to a hard rain in Hartford.''' --New Republic

"It is a rare pleasure to breathe the atmosphere of confidence and wholeness which distinguishes the world of Wallace Stevens. Here we are refreshed by certainty without fragmentariness, by joyous possibilities without dishonesty. Here we find a moral and philosophical center through which reality may be repossessed and re-created with each new poetic act." -- The Hudson Review