It
is expectation, a desire...
A
little different from reality;
The
difference that we make in what we see
And
our own memorials of that difference."
from
"Description without Place"
Notes on
'Reality, Imagination, Supreme Fiction':
Chapter 4 of
Robert Pack's "Wallace Stevens"
I. Reality is
dependent on the imagination for realization; and the imagination, as
part of a greater reality, is dependent on itself for realization
A. The
imagination recognizes its own function
1. It
discovers forms within the possibilities of reality among its own inventions
2. It
moves from perception to expand its vision of reality with the
addition of its own forms
3. As
the forms cease to satisfy the human instinct for what is literally
real, the imagination returns to perception and begins anew
II. Reality
will appear different at every point of a cycle: the imagination
moving from immediate perception and the imagination moving toward it
A. The
evolving imagination sees reality as symbolized by summer, when the
earth proliferates its imagery
B. The
contracting imagination abandons all elaborations and returns to the
essential fact of the world, symbolized by winter, when the earth
strips itself of summer's images
III. The
source of reality is place, the world; the source of imagination is
person, the poet
A. Thus,
it is important to Stevens to achieve the unity of imagination and reality