Raging For Order:The Sound Of Words In Wallace Stevens’ Ideas Of Order

Like other American modern poets,Wallace Stevens has strong affinity for sound to construct poetry.Based on Stevens’ own poetic notion of “the sound of words,” this thesis intends to explore the role of sound in expressing thoughts and construing the theme of “order” in Ideas of Order,the collection of 36 poems.This thesis expounds that Stevens’ distinctive nonsense is an outcry of the chaotic reality,the noisy,discordant and pointless sound of which creates auditory stimulation,provoking people’s concern about their chaotic state of mind.The thesis delves deep ly into the way Stevens uses repetition to convey his rage for order.The recurrence of the unifying theme through repetition variation displays his philosophical contemplation on the interconversion between order and disorder.T he coexistence of Nietzscheian repetitions and Platonic ones in poetic texts helps to form the metaphor of repetition through natural cycle,which articulates the poets’ desire to seek comfort from the order within natural cycle so as to counteract the disorder in reality.The repetitive nature of memory also discloses Stevens ’ hope of returning to order.The thesis further investigates the function of music in reconstructing order,and demonstrates Stevens’ ultimate goal of helping people rebuild inner order when he turns to the order inside music and poetry for some inspiration.Stevens uses the blending of natural symphony and human singing to empower poetry to reconstruct belief and spiritual regulation.His jazz experiment is a modernist expression of a new idea of order,which reveals the function of music to help people understand our own being and thus find the order in life.Finally,the thesis analyzes Stevens’ ideas of order in his writing of silence,and demonstrates how the sound of silence contributes to the integration of man with nature,hence reconstruction of order.The sound of silence points to a permanence,echoing the poet’s continuous mediation on his ideas of order.Stevens muses on sound as a means of redemption,by which he is able to reconstruct the relationship of man with nature,society and the world,in a way to help people regain order,and thus achieve his poetic practice that “poet,helps people live their lives.”Through investigation of Stevens’ ideas of order,and examination of the function of sound in constructing order in Ideas of Order,this research aims to provide a new path to reading Stevens’ poetry,as well as his sound poetics.