How Does Wallace Stevens Use Dynamic Images In Poetry

Transition from Static to Dynamic Images in Wallace Stevens’ poems

“Description restores vitality to the plain visual object” (Altieri, 250). Take for example when Horatio, after having seen the ghost the first act of Hamlet, notices the beginning of the new day: “But, look, the morn in russet mantle clad, walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.” (Shakespeare, 347). He doesn’t say “Sun’s coming up!” and we do not read Shakespeare in hopes that he would. Instead we are given a description of the sun and it’s movement. This two part description is vital to the beginning of the entire play, and closes the scene succinctly. It provides first a visual image for the reader or listener to imagine, and then gives motion, in this case

“The muddy rivers of spring” (Stevens, 119) instills an ominous tone, as spring water levels are generally at the highest throughout the year, and muddy river water denotes a higher than average water level. Although it remains a static image by syntax in the first line, it readily accepts the change invoked by the second line, “Are snarling”. The passive verb form stresses a continuation of the rivers’ condition. The rivers are a contained force not acting against anything, yet. The following adverb phrase serves at once as a peaceful image and furthering destructive force, “Under muddy skies.” Thus, “The muddy rivers of spring / are snarling / under muddy skies” serves as a flux between static, dynamic, and static images. The muddy rivers of spring serve on their own as a visual image, but are further enhanced with menace with their present, ongoing, condition. The heightening of the sentence by denoting the water laden clouds overhead gives a continuation and portent of the swollen river. The rivers’ motion is detracted with the inclusion of the muddy skies, as the skies themselves are not snarling. The skies, or their predecessors, have contributed to the condition of the river, yet they remain a static image of dark skies