Wallace Stevens

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Lore & Background

Stevens was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1879 into a Lutheran family of Dutch and German descent. He attended Harvard as a non-degree three-year special student from 1897 to 1900, where he served as the 1901 president of *The Harvard Advocate*. He was personally introduced to the philosopher George Santayana and was strongly influenced by Santayana's book *Interpretations of Poetry and Religion*. After Harvard, he moved to New York City, briefly worked as a journalist, then attended New York Law School, graduating with a law degree in 1903. He met Elsie Viola Kachel in 1904 on a trip back to Reading; they married in 1909 over his parents' objections—nobody from his family attended the wedding, and Stevens never again visited or spoke to his parents during his father's lifetime. A daughter, Holly, was born in 1924. After working in several New York law firms, Stevens was hired in January 1908 as a lawyer for the American Bonding Company. By 1914 he had become vice president of the New York office of the Equitable Surety Company. When that job was made redundant after a merger in 1916, he joined the home office of Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company and moved to Hartford, where he remained for the rest of his life. By 1934, Stevens had been named vice president of the company. He made numerous visits to Key West, Florida, between 1922 and 1940. In February 1935, he encountered poet Robert Frost at the Casa Marina hotel; the two argued, and Frost reported that Stevens had been drunk and acted inappropriately. The following year, Stevens was in an altercation with Ernest Hemingway at a party in Key West—Stevens broke his hand, apparently from hitting Hemingway's jaw, and was repeatedly knocked to the street by Hemingway. Stevens later apologized. In 1940, Stevens made his final trip to Key West; Frost was at the Casa Marina again, and again the two men argued. Stevens was politically conservative; critic William York Tindall described him as a Republican in the mold of Robert A. Taft.

Reader's Guide

Stevens's first period begins with the publication of *Harmonium* (1923), followed by a slightly revised and amended second edition in 1930. It features, among other poems, 'The Emperor of Ice-Cream', 'Sunday Morning', 'The Snow Man', and 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird'. His second period commenced with *Ideas of Order* (1933), included in *Transport to Summer* (1947). His third and final period began with the publication of *The Auroras of Autumn* (1950), followed by *The Necessary Angel: Essays On Reality and the Imagination* (1951). Many of Stevens's poems, like 'Anecdote of the Jar', 'The Man with the Blue Guitar', 'The Idea of Order at Key West', 'Of Modern Poetry', and 'Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction', deal with the art of making art and poetry in particular. His *Collected Poems* (1954) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955. After winning the prize, he was offered a faculty position at Harvard but declined since it would have required him to give up his job at The Hartford. Stevens's career as a businessman-lawyer by day and a poet during his leisure time has received significant attention. His day-to-day responsibilities involved evaluating surety insurance claims: if Stevens rejected a claim and the company was sued, he would hire a local lawyer to defend the case, instructing the outside lawyer through a letter reviewing the facts and setting out the company's legal position, then step out of the case, delegating all decisions on procedure and litigation strategy.

Did You Know?

• Stevens served as the 1901 president of The Harvard Advocate while a non-degree special student at Harvard from 1897 to 1900.
• Nobody from Stevens's family attended his 1909 wedding to Elsie Viola Kachel, and he never again visited or spoke to his parents during his father's lifetime.
• Elsie Stevens's striking profile may have been used on Adolph A. Weinman's 1916–1945 Mercury dime and the Walking Liberty Half Dollar.
• After winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1955, Stevens declined a faculty position at Harvard because it would have required him to give up his job at The Hartford.