Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Farewell Without a Guitar

Farewell Without a Guitar
by Wallace Stevens (pg 461)

Spring's bright paradise has come to this.
Now the thousand-leaved green falls to the ground.
Farewell, my days

The thousand-leaved red
Comes to this thunder of light
At it's autumnal terminal -

Head down. The reflections and repetitions,
The blows and buffets of fresh senses
Of the rider that was,

Are a final construction,
Like glass and sun, of male reality
And of that other and her desire.


I spent some time thumbing through the pages of my little, black Wallace Stevens book and came across one of his later works entitled , "Farewell Without a Guitar." It may have been the imagery of the guitar in the title that caught my eye at first (thought I could make some sort of connection to "The Man With the Blue Guitar?), but after reading it a few times, it made me realize that the guitar in the title could be a stand-in for something else he truly loved (a woman, perhaps).

The imagery in the poem immediately made me think of the Marc Webb film (500) Days of Summer. If Spring represents the beginning of life, then one could assume summer represents a period in life and love when everything is at its brightest, most vibrant, and most exciting. The object of the main character's affection in the film also happens to be named "Summer." But every season only lasts for a limited number of days, the same way the days of all of our affairs appear to be numbered... Spring's bright paradise must always turn into the thousand-leaved red, and our perspectives turn colder - and, unsurprisingly, the name of the woman he meets at the very end of the film (someone who could possibly be a new love interest) is named Autumn.

For anyone who has seen the film, we know "Head down. The reflections and repetitions,  The blows and buffets of fresh senses" could refer to the way in which the protagonist is chronicling the days he was in love with Summer out of sequence. I think Stevens is lamenting the loss of a vibrant love in his life, the other being the woman herself and her desire being something that was fleeting was his grasp at the end of this affair.



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