A dialectical reading of Wallace Stevens' "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman"

Résumé

This description of dialectics is a fitting epigraph for a dialectical reading of any poem by Wallace Stevens. In "Notes  Toward a Supreme Fiction," a later poem, the poet reveals his quest for the "ultimate poem," one that"..."Must be Abstract," "Must Change.," and "Must Give Pleasure," titles of its three parts respectively.