Musical Metaphors in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens\u27s "The Man with the Blue Guitar" (1937) is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential poems of the 20th century. Inspired by Picasso\u27s painting The Old Guitarist, the poem in turn inspired Michael Tippett\u27s sonata for solo guitar, "The Blue Guitar" (Tippett 1983) and David Hockney\u27s The Blue Guitar: Etchings by David Hockney who was inspired by Wallace Stevens who was inspired by Pablo Picasso (Hockney and Stevens 1977). Central to "The Man with the Blue Guitar," the metaphor of the musical instrument as a transformational symbol of the imagination is common in Stevens\u27s poems. The structure of "The Man with the Blue Guitar," according to J. Hillis Miller, is the structure of stream-of-consciousness. Stevens\u27s poem creates what has been called "the deconstructed moment in modern poetry," "an attempt to project a spatialized time that can be viewed from the privileged position of a timeless, static moment capable of encompassing a life at a glance" (Jackson 1982). This consciousness, which Derrida refers to as the "trace," Stevens calls "the evasive movement of language." The trace is the perception of the absence of meaning after the word or perception has passed, the glimpse of a hidden meaning that immediately vanishes. Stevens\u27s poem influenced not only other poets, artists and composersreferences to and echoes of his ideas and techniques can be seen in popular music and culture well into the 21st century.“The Man with the Blue Guitar” (1937) pesnika Wallacea Stevensa velja za eno najpomembnejših in najvplivnejših pesmi 20. stoletja. Navdih zanjo je dobil pri Picassovi sliki Stari kitarist. Wallaceova pesem je navdihnila Michaela Tipetta, da je napisal sonato za solo kitaro “The Blue Guitar” (1983) in Davida Hockneya, ki je napisal The Blue Guitar: Etchings by David Hockney who was inspired by Wallace Stevens who was inspired by Pablo Picasso (Hockney in Stevens 1977). Osrednje mesto v pesmi “The Man with the Blue Guitar” – in tudi sicer v Stevensovi poeziji – zavzema metafora glasbenega instrumenta kot transformacijskega simbola domišljije. Glede na strukturo je pesem, po J. Hillsu Millerju, primer poezije toka zavesti. Stevens z njo ustvari to, čemur pravimo “dekonstruirani trenutek v moderni poeziji”, “poskus projicirati poprostorjeni čas, ki ga lahko opazujemo iz pozicije brezčasnega, statičnega trenutka, sposobnega v hipu zaobjeti vse življenje” (Jackson 1982). Gre za zavest, ki jo Derrida imenjuje “sled”, Stevens pa “izmikajoče gibanje jezika”. Sled pomeni, da se v trenutku, ko beseda izgine, zavemo odsotnosti njenega pomenaje torej bežen pogled na pomen, ki ga v hipu ni več. Stevensova pesem ni vplivala le na druge pesnike, umetnike in skladatelje, pač pa so njegove ideje in tehnike našle odmev tudi v popularni glasbi in kulturi 21. stoletja