Figure Concealed Wallace Stevens, Music, and Valeryan Echoes

In a letter of January 1955, Wallace Stevens referred to Paul Valeacute;ry as a "prodigy of poetry". Although his correspondence reveals that he was long familiar with both Valeacute;ry's poetry and prose, and scholars from the early days of Stevens criticism to the present -- from Frank Kermode to Harold Bloom and Eleanor Cook -- have acknowledged Valeacute;ry's importance for Stevens and noted the mark of Valeacute;ry's poetics on Stevens' prose and poetry, until now there has been no comprehensive analysis of the affinities between them. The first full-length study of its kind, "The Figure Concealed" explores the multiple parallels between these two great 20th century poets. Lisa Goldfarb brings Valeacute;ry's and Stevens' poetics and poetry into conversation, and focuses on the resonance of Valeacute;ry's musical ideas in Stevens' poetic theory and practice. Early chapters focus on the interlacing of their work poetically and philosophically, while the later ones increasingly focus on readings of Stevens through the lens of Valeacute;ryan musical-poetic theory. Stevens' letters, essays and poems are examined alongside Valeacute;ry's Cahiers [Notebooks], essays, and poems to amplify the Valeacute;ryan echo throughout Stevens' work. The Figure Concealed makes an important contribution to studies of modern poetry and to Stevens scholarship in particular. It offers a new and transformative comparative study and proposes a musical poetics which will be important for scholars of modern poetry, of Stevens and Valeacute;ry, and will appeal to all those interested in the relationship between music and poetry, the arts more broadly, as well as aesthetics and philosophy.