Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Wallace Stevens’ "The Beginning" captures a poignant meditation on the passage of time, loss, and memory through its vivid imagery and subtle emotional resonance. The poem portrays the remnants of a moment or season—summer—embodied in the traces of a woman’s presence and the objects she left behind. Through its exploration of absence and decay, Stevens reflects on the interplay between the transient and the eternal, emphasizing the beauty and fragility of fleeting experiences.

The opening line situates the poem at the close of summer, marked by "these few stains / And the rust and rot of the door through which she went." Summer, often symbolic of vitality and abundance, is presented here as fading, leaving behind physical marks of its passing. The imagery of stains and rot suggests both a natural and inevitable decay, as well as a deep connection to the physical world. The "door through which she went" serves as a threshold, a literal and metaphorical passage from presence to absence, life to memory.

The house, now empty, becomes a repository of echoes and impressions. The speaker recalls, "But here is where she sat / To comb her dewy hair, a touchless light." The act of combing hair, a delicate and intimate gesture, is infused with a sense of ethereal beauty, as suggested by "touchless light." This light, described as "perplexed by its darker iridescences," captures the complexity of memory—its brightness mingled with shadows, its clarity tinged with ambiguity. The description reflects the difficulty of holding onto something both vivid and elusive, much like the fading season of summer.

The glass in which she "used to look" becomes a symbol of reflection and immediacy: "At the moment’s being, without history, / The self of summer perfectly perceived." This image emphasizes the temporality of the moment, free from the weight of past or future. The "self of summer" is portrayed as an ideal state, unburdened by narrative or continuity. Yet, this perfection is fleeting, and the act of perceiving it underscores its transience. Her ability to "feel its country gayety and smile" conveys the joy and vitality of the moment, tempered by its inevitable dissolution, as she "trembles, hand and lip."

The poem transitions to a more tactile recollection: "This is the chair from which she gathered up / Her dress, the carefulest, commodious weave." The detailed description of the dress, woven "to twelve bells," evokes a sense of care and craftsmanship, tying the ephemeral act of dressing to a broader sense of ritual and time. The cast-off dress lying on the floor becomes a poignant symbol of her absence, a physical reminder of a moment now past. The discarded garment embodies both the intimacy of her presence and the starkness of her departure.

The final lines introduce a shift in tone: "Now, the first tutoyers of tragedy / Speak softly, to begin with, in the eaves." The use of "tutoyers," a French term for addressing someone informally, suggests an intimacy and immediacy to the onset of tragedy. These "first" murmurs in the eaves hint at an impending sense of loss or sorrow, as if the house itself participates in the unfolding narrative. The eaves, positioned at the edge of the structure, mirror the liminal space between past and present, presence and absence.

Structurally, the poem unfolds with a contemplative rhythm, moving fluidly between the physical remnants of the woman’s presence and the emotional resonance of her absence. The free verse allows Stevens to blend precise imagery with philosophical reflection, creating a tone that is both tender and melancholic. The interplay of light and shadow, presence and absence, memory and decay, reflects the poem’s central themes of transience and the passage of time.

"The Beginning" captures the beauty and fragility of moments and memories, emphasizing their impermanence while celebrating their emotional depth. Through its vivid imagery and meditative tone, the poem invites readers to reflect on the ways in which physical spaces and objects bear the traces of lived experience. Stevens masterfully balances the intimate and the universal, suggesting that even in the face of loss and decay, there is a profound and enduring resonance in the act of remembrance.

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