Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Wallace Stevens? "The Shape of the Coroner" combines rich symbolism and a surreal narrative to create a meditation on mortality, spectacle, and the rituals that surround death. Through the imagery of palms, brass music, and the coroner’s presence, Stevens explores themes of ceremony and finality, while imbuing the scene with a sense of theatricality and ambiguity.

The poem opens with a morning scene, vivid with movement and sound: "And palms were waved / And the brass was played." This celebratory tone, with its suggestion of a procession or a public spectacle, contrasts sharply with the introduction of the coroner, whose arrival signals a shift from life to the solemnity of death. The “limpid shoes” of the coroner suggest clarity and precision, qualities fitting for a figure who examines and interprets the realities of mortality. Yet the word “limpid” also carries a sense of fragility, hinting that even the authority of the coroner is subject to the same impermanence as life itself.

Stevens often contrasts sensory elements to evoke tension, and here, the “palms” and “brass” represent vitality and performance. The palms—symbols of triumph or peace—are not mere static objects but are “played,” their movements imbued with energy. However, this energy is fleeting, as the "palms... folded him round," encompassing the figure in death. Similarly, the brass music, initially vibrant, grows “cold” as the coroner’s hand dismisses the band. This dismissal underscores the finality of death, a stark silence replacing the vitality of the procession.

The coroner?s actions take on a ritualistic quality. His pouring of an “elixir / Into the ground” suggests an act of purification or offering, though its exact purpose remains ambiguous. The act is transformative, linking the physical and the metaphysical. It marks the transition from the public spectacle of life to the intimate and subdued reality of death, represented by the shabby man with his “eye too sleek” and “biscuit cheek.” These descriptors evoke a figure who is both unremarkable and yet unsettling, a reminder of the ordinary and universal nature of death.

The final stanza deepens the sense of mystery, as the coroner bends over the palms and the "elysium" is revealed in “a parlor of day.” The reference to elysium—a concept tied to an idealized afterlife—suggests a resolution, but Stevens places it in a “parlor,” a domestic and almost mundane setting. This juxtaposition between the transcendent and the ordinary blurs the boundary between life and death, as if to suggest that the afterlife is not an ethereal realm but a continuation of the everyday, reframed by perception.

The poem’s structure mirrors its thematic oscillation between ceremony and silence, movement and stillness. The repetition of words like “palms,” “brass,” and “folded” reinforces the cyclical nature of life and death, as well as the inevitable fading of vibrancy into quietude. The coroner, an emblem of authority over the dead, performs his duties with a detached precision that both resolves the ceremony and underscores its ephemerality.

Stevens uses imagery and language to create a layered meditation on the intersection of mortality and ritual. The waving palms, the vibrant brass, and the coroner’s precise gestures form a tableau that examines the human need to impose order and meaning on the inevitable. At the same time, the poem resists simple interpretations, leaving open questions about the nature of death and the rituals we construct around it. The "elysium" in a "parlor of day" suggests that the boundaries between the sublime and the mundane are porous, shaped as much by imagination as by reality. Through its rich symbolism and subtle interplay of sound and silence, "The Shape of the Coroner" encapsulates Stevens’ fascination with the ways we confront and represent the mysteries of existence.

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