1a. What time of year does this poem describe? What details are used in the description of the poem's setting?
2a. What kind of mind does the speaker say a person must have not to think that there is misery in the sound of the wind and the leaves?
3a. What does the poem say that the snowman is? What does the snowman behold?
4a. How effectively does Stevens depict winter and the emotions associated with it?
1b. How do the details of the setting make you respond?
2b. What characteristics would a "mind of winter" have?
3b. What comment is the speaker making about the differences between people and objects in nature?
4b. Stevens centers his poem around a snowman to show that, unlike humans, natural objects cannot perceive. If Stevens were to apply the concept of this poem to fall, spring, and summer, around what might he center each seasonal poem?
Pathetic Fallacy.Read the poem "Other People's Sorrow," then answer the following questions. How does Stevens's depiction of the snowman differ from Lamb's depiction of the willow? What do people sometimes see in nature that is not there, according to "The Snow Man"? In what sense is there "nothing" in nature until it is perceived by a human being?
Other People's Sorrow In its extemity, on the farthest hill, the willow weeps alone. -Robin Lamb
1a. In stanza 1, what does the speaker see "Among twenty snowy mountains?"
2a. In stanza 2, to what does the speaker compare three blackbirds?
3a. In stanza 3, what did the blackbird do in the autumn winds?
4a. In stanza 4, what groups of things are described as being "one"?
5a. In stanza 5, what two aspects of human speech does the speaker of the poem compare to a blackbird whistling and "just after"?
6a. In stanza 6, what scene is described?
7a. In stanza 7, what do the men of Haddam look like? What do they imagine? What question does the speaker put to them?
8a. In stanza 8, what does the speaker know?
9a. In stanza 9, what did the blackbird touch when it flew out of sight?
10a. In stanza 10, who would cry out "At the sight of blackbirds / Flying in a green light"?
11a. In stanza 11, what does the man ride in? What causes him to feel fear?
12a. In stanza 12, what is moving? What must be flying?
13a. In stanza 13, what does the afternoon look like? What is unchanging?
14a. Blackbirds are generally associated with isolation, sadness, and despair. Identify stanzas in which these emotions are expressed.
1b. What kind of eyesight would a person need to be able to see the eye of a blackbird move "Among twenty snowy mountains"? In what way is the perceptive power of the imagination greater than the perceptive power of the senses?
2b. In what circumstance might a person be "of three minds"?
3b. What is the "pantomime" referred to in stanza 3?
4b. In what circumstances are a man and a woman often spoken of as being "one"? Some critics have suggested that stanza 4 is a kind of joke in which the speaker demonstrates the absurdity of thinking of two people as one. If that reading of the stanza is accepted, why does the speaker say that "A man and a woman and a blackbird / Are one"? Suppose that the stanza is not a joke but is meant to be taken seriously. How might a man, a woman, and a blackbird become one? What does this imply about the blackbird?
5b. How is an inflection like a blackbird whistling? How is an innuendo like "just after"?
6b. What mood, or feeling, does the scene create? Why might the speaker consider a natural world that would create such a mood "indecipherable"? Where does the mood come from?
7b. What might the "golden birds" represent? What kind of image is the blackbird walking around women's feet? How does nature violate people's dreams? Does the speaker favor dreams or the real world?
8b. A poet is someone who has command of "noble accents / And lucid, inescapable rhythms." However, such a person does not necessarily come by these on his or her own. What role does nature play in teaching the poet his or her trade?
9b. The point at which the blackbird disappears from sight marks the limits of the speaker's physical perception. What lies beyond the limits of the circle of one's physical perception? What can one perceive beyond one's physical senses? On what is the imagination dependent?
10b. Imagine a poet who normally writes only euphonious, pleasant-sounding verse. What kinds of subjects might force such a poet to "cry out sharply"?
11b. What kind of life does the man live? Of what might the blackbirds be an omen? What does the glass coach symbolize?
12b. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote that "You can never step into the same river twice." What similar statement about the nature of the world is made by the speaker in stanza 12?
13b. How might the speaker feel? In what sense are both the speaker and the blackbird "waiting it out"?
14b. Why does Stevens show thirteen different ways of looking at blackbirds?
Image and Imagery.What primary image is used throughout the poem? How does the winter setting in many of the poem's stanzas contribute to the poem's imagery?
Abstract and Concrete. Complete the chart below. On the left, write the abstract and concrete terms found in stanza 5. On the right, identify them as abstract or concrete. One example has been done for you.
1. Write an introduction for a public television feature on "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Give an example of how Stevens demonstrates that the nature of perception is related to the imagination.
2. Write a paragraph for Wallace Stevens describing a season of your choice. Use the pathetic fallacy to attribute human emotions and motivations to elements of the season.
3. Choose a concrete thing, such as an oak tree, a garden, a beach, a pair of sneakers, or a backpack. Then write a poem with three stanzas to share with a classmate, having each stanza demonstrate a different perspective of the thing you chose.
Base Words and Prefixes. Underline the base word once and the prefix twice in each of the following words from "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Next, write the meaning of each word, consulting your textbook or a dictionary.
1. inflections
2. innuendoes
3. indecipherable
4. inescapable
Researching Poetry Criticism. Locate and read Wallace Stevens's long poem "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction." Use the following Research Log to take notes on the poem. You may also consult sources of criticism of Stevens's poem. Then, on your own paper, write a few paragraphs comparing and contrasting Stevens's views with those expressed by Robert Frost in his letter to The Amherst Student.
Notes on Stevens's Poem:
Sources Used:
