Imagination vs. Reality: “The Poems of Our Climate” and “The Snow Man” Emma Seslar College

Wallace Stevens is known for his philosophical meditations on the dual nature of existence throughout his poetry. According to Stevens, poetry should not be concerned with either the body or the mind, but rather “an interdependence of the imagination and reality as equals.” It is rather difficult to interlock the two concepts as they stand on completely opposite poles of the human psyche. The affiliation between imagination and reality is what Stevens explores and attempts to define and explain: “Stevens’ poetry is both surreal (philosophical understanding for the lost) and real (the practical conclusion that Stevens can be just as lost as everyone else” (Zarzicki 12). Through the use of natural imagery and contemplative language in his two poems, “The Poems of Our Climate” and “The Snow Man,” the intricate and convoluted dualism of human existence becomes graspable.

The intricate duality of the physical and the metaphysical is portrayed in “The Poems of Our Climate.” In the first stanza, Stevens describes the physical appearance of the scene through the use of pure and serene words, such as “brilliant,” “clear,” “snowy,” “white,” “newly-fallen,” “cold,” and “porcelain.” Through this use of diction, Stevens illustrates a world...