Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Wallace Stevens? "Floral Decorations for Bananas" is a playful exploration of aesthetic expectations, tonal contrasts, and a challenge to traditional decorum. In this poem, Stevens constructs a tableau of unconventional imagery, blending humor, critique, and an offbeat sense of artistry.

The poem opens with an exclamation that sets its sardonic tone: "Well, nuncle, this plainly won?t do." This line establishes a direct, conversational rapport with the audience, suggesting a shared dissatisfaction with the titular "bananas" and their unsuitability as decorative elements in a refined setting. The bananas, described as "insolent, linear peels" and "sullen, hurricane shapes," are anthropomorphized and imbued with defiance. Their stark, geometric shapes clash with the delicate eglantine—a flower associated with grace and tradition—underscoring a thematic tension between natural chaos and cultivated order.

Stevens juxtaposes the bananas? bluntness with an imagined alternative: "plums tonight, / In an eighteenth-century dish." This vision conjures an image of refined opulence, where every detail reflects the ideals of symmetry and taste. The "pettifogging buds" and "women of primrose and purl" evoke an aesthetic rooted in classical refinement, where nature is tamed and adorned to fit societal ideals. The humor emerges in the disparity between this polished imagery and the bananas? raw, unvarnished presence.

The second stanza intensifies this tension by framing the bananas as a product of an "ogre"—a grotesque and uncivilized figure. The ogre?s influence extends to the setting, which is described as dominated by "an outdoor gloom" and "a sniff and noxious place." This grim atmosphere contrasts sharply with the more genteel alternatives previously proposed. The bananas are likened to something crude and disruptive, their placement a deliberate affront to the delicate balance of cultivated decor.

Stevens? use of lush and vivid imagery reaches its peak in the final stanza, where the bananas are transformed by "leaves / Plucked from the Carib trees." These leaves are described with a visceral intensity: "Fibrous and dangling down, / Oozing cantankerous gum." This imagery introduces a tactile, almost grotesque quality, turning the bananas into a spectacle of raw vitality. The "purple maws" and "musk" add to the sensory overload, rendering the bananas not merely objects of aesthetic consideration but embodiments of untamed nature. The women, depicted as "shanks / And bangles and slatted eyes," mirror this unrefined energy, their personas shaped by the surroundings.

The poem concludes without resolution, leaving the bananas in their provocative state. Stevens resists prescribing how the scene should resolve itself, focusing instead on the interplay of opposites—beauty and ugliness, refinement and rawness, tradition and disruption. Through its vivid and often absurd imagery, the poem critiques rigid aesthetic norms while celebrating the vitality and unpredictability of nature. Stevens invites readers to reconsider the boundaries of art and decoration, challenging the notion that beauty must always conform to preordained rules.

Ultimately, "Floral Decorations for Bananas" is as much about the act of seeing as it is about the objects seen. Stevens encourages an awareness of the ways context and expectation shape perception. The bananas, though crude and unpolished, embody a kind of wild beauty that refuses containment. In this light, the poem becomes a meditation on the fluidity of aesthetic value and the transformative power of imagination.

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