Research Article
Wallace Stevens, Communism, and the Artistic Imagination
Kenneth Womack*
Issue:
Volume 13, Issue 2, April 2025
Pages:
23-29
Received:
29 January 2025
Accepted:
12 February 2025
Published:
11 March 2025
DOI:
10.11648/j.ijla.20251302.11
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Abstract: In his lectures and poetry across pre- and postwar America, Wallace Stevens evinced an increasingly fervent anti-communist stance. In several seminal poems, including “A Duck for Dinner,” “A Dish of Peaches in Russia,” “Description without Place,” and “Mountains Covered with Cats,” Stevens addressed aspects of life in the Soviet Union, as well as what he perceived to be communism’s assault upon the creative imagination. For Stevens, this strident political position was in keeping with North American sentiments at the time. As Samuel French Morse remembers, Stevens “was very conservative, essentially. Eisenhower was his man, not Stevenson.” In fact, unlike many other Americans, Stevens had simply remained conservative all along—throughout the Depression, the second World War, and their respective aftermaths. By the 1950s, America’s imagination—and its anti-communist sentiments—had merely caught up with Stevens’s. Indeed, as the 1950s progressed, America’s hysteria began to manifest itself in “the red scare” and the witch hunts of blacklisting and McCarthyism. As his poetry during this era demonstrates, Stevens remained deeply concerned about communism’s potential for infiltrating American life and shifting the course of postwar society.
Abstract: In his lectures and poetry across pre- and postwar America, Wallace Stevens evinced an increasingly fervent anti-communist stance. In several seminal poems, including “A Duck for Dinner,” “A Dish of Peaches in Russia,” “Description without Place,” and “Mountains Covered with Cats,” Stevens addressed aspects of life in the Soviet Union, as well as w...
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Research Article
Rosaries and Prayerbooks: Sacred Objects of Spirituality and Religion on Antarctica
Ellen Cressman Frye*
Issue:
Volume 13, Issue 2, April 2025
Pages:
30-37
Received:
18 December 2024
Accepted:
12 February 2025
Published:
13 March 2025
DOI:
10.11648/j.ijla.20251302.12
Downloads:
Views:
Abstract: In the language, literature, and culture of Antarctica, religion and spirituality have always played a supremely valuable, yet glaringly overlooked, role. For some people, like Antarctica itself, spirituality and religion often go unnoticed in their daily lives. Very slowly, as global warming and climate change have started to affect more people’s lives in an increasingly negative way, Antarctica is slowing revealing itself in its fullness and power. As both Poles begin to unveil their strengths (and sadly, weaknesses), it is also time to examine the foundational aspects of many pieces of literature, as well as previously unrevealed and unstudied things found on Antarctica: objects of spirituality and religion. This essay seeks to explore these things and objects, whether tangible or intangible, whether past or present. Just like the construction of a house of worship, I will beging with the foundational things of religion and spirituality, which is more than just a church, temple, beach, mountain, or chapel. Then, I will continue with what many would consider the “big” things of religion and spirituality, followed by the “little” things, which are innumerable. Finally, the intangible things of religion and spirituality, as found and practiced on and about Antarctica, I will attempt to analyze. The intent is to offer here a new perspective on the sacredness of Antarctica, with the hope of growing increased awareness of concern about, and passion for Antarctica, and indeed, our planet and humanity at large.
Abstract: In the language, literature, and culture of Antarctica, religion and spirituality have always played a supremely valuable, yet glaringly overlooked, role. For some people, like Antarctica itself, spirituality and religion often go unnoticed in their daily lives. Very slowly, as global warming and climate change have started to affect more people’s ...
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