Stevens's "Peter Quince at the Clavier" and the Pleasures of Merely Going Round

Abstract

The author links a critical journey through "Peter Quince at the Clavier" with his own academic journey since completing, over thirty years ago in Germany, a dissertation that dealt with Wallace Stevens's poetry. A foray into artistic treatments of the "Susanna and the Elders" theme (from Albrecht Altdorfer to Thomas Hart Benton) highlights the extent to which Stevens explores, creatively responds to, and then detaches himself from the long-established voyeuristic implications of the story, using them to outline his own theory as to how we should read his poem and, indeed, poetry in general.