Introduction of the Poem “Sunday Morning”:
Wallace Stevens’ “Sunday Morning” is considered one of his finest poems. It presents the reflections of a woman who, instead of attending church, spends her Sunday morning at home, leisurely enjoying her breakfast. As she sits in comfort after waking from sleep, her mind drifts into contemplation. While others gather for worship, she immerses herself in quiet, profound thoughts.
Summary of the Poem “Sunday Morning”:
Meditation on the Crucifixion:
In the first stanza of the poem, nothing is known about the place where she is sitting. She is thinking about the crucification (death) of Jesus Christ. The poet calls his death as an “Ancient Sacrifice” as well as “Old Catastrophe”. She is so much engaged in her thoughts that she thinks of walking on the water to the old city of Palestine where Christ was crucified.
The woman wants to see that scene with her own eyes. Her thoughts are compared to the twilight on water in a soundless atmosphere. This stanza shows the use of contrast to express the joy of the world along with her sad -thinking. There are a cup of coffee, some oranges and a parrot showing the comfortable position of the woman.
Questioning Religion and Mortality:
In the second stanza the poet begins with his three questions which sum up the argument of the complete poem.
The woman asks why she should give her all things to Jesus Christ. Is that religion a tax on her property? So the question is related to death. Her second question is why Divinity should come as a shadow in dreams. It shows her doubt about all religions. The third question is why the woman should not enjoy all the available pleasures of the world without thinking of a different life in heaven.
The woman herself gets the answers of all these questions. She wants a secular religion for the whole world as expressed in the words “Comforts of the Sun”. She has numerous feelings in the world without religion which are expressed by the words like moods, emotions, passions, etc. She feels that both pleasure and pain should be felt in an equal way with the change of seasons and circumstances. For example, green branch is the symbol of pleasure and black branch is the symbol of pain.
Jove and Human Values:
The poet begins the third stanza with his description of god Jove. It shows his sudden change from the ideas expressed in the second stanza. The subject is religion which is related with three fresh questions given in the lines from six to eight. In the beginning of the stanza Jove with his strange image is moving among his ‘hinds’ (servants and labourers). Jove is speaking but he is not clearly heard. He is admired but not understood. He is known as the personification of the contrast of everything human.
After this, the poet describes the sky known as the place of inhuman birth of Jove. The last lines of this stanza indicate the comforts of the earth. There is also an expression of good relations among people with love and friendship. Wallace Stevens is fond of giving surprises and strange comparisons in his poetry. According to the poet, the sky separates heaven from the earth. The poet asserts that the earth would be a better place to share our labour and pain. The sky is next to the earth in glory for the sake of lasting love. Its reason is that the poet gives importance to human values.
Contentment in the Present World:
In the fourth stanza, the poet repeats the ideas of the woman again to the present from the future. He adds the ideas related to her faith about which she had started through her meditations. The woman seems to be contented when she looks the birds flying about freely. She thinks that her questions are the same like those of the birds. The poet shows that the earth and the world are more lasting than any vision of heaven. According to the poet, paradise is an illusion but the world is perfect reality. It is clear from the singing and flying birds.
Restlessness Amidst Worldly Pleasures:
Though the woman appeared contented in the fourth stanza, yet again she appeared restless in the fifth stanza. She was happy in the world drinking coffee, eating oranges and watching a swallow in the morning in June but she desired something more. Perhaps it was her desire to know the reality of the other world. Its reason was that she thought of death after all the worldly pleasures. According to the poet, “Death is the mother of beauty.” An average man thinks of death after enjoying beautiful things in the world.
Death, Beauty, and Human Desire:
The woman desires fullness and some lasting happiness in that world which gives only temporary pleasures. Her such desire brings into her mind the ideas related to death, motherhood and beauty. Such an idea of death as a mother is again a surprise in these poetic lines. He regards death as the basis of all beautiful things in the world. All the sorrows and victories come to an end one day. This world is always changing and death is the last part of human life. In the closing lines of this stanza, the poet makes a reference to some boys and girls who are eating plums and pears and feel love for each other after eating them.
Temporal Beauty of the Earth:
The poet shows the scene of numerous fruit trees having plums and pears in the sixth stanza. Thus he show a picture of paradise where there is no death and no change. The fruits do not fall from the trees in paradise. The poet asserts that there is no beauty without change. The woman’s needs can be supplied only in this world and by its temporal beauty. She should know that this world is the image of paradise. According to the poet, only art is the basis of immortal bliss.
Vitality and Rejection of Religion:
As we study stanza VII we find that it shows positive vitality in the use of such words as delights, boisterous turbulent, etc. The men who assert their close relationship to the sun do so with maximum energy and zeal. After this the poem moves from spring to autumn and after this to summer. The chant of men shows the echo of paradise related to their bodies and the echoing sounds of the earth. The dew of the summer morning shows the immortality of their chant which disappears when the sun rises into the sky. In this way Christianity is rejected once again. The poet cannot think of a situation without religion.
Conclusion: Faith in the World:
In the last and eighth stanza, the poem reaches its end but it shows its beginning. The end of the poem shows three statements. First of all, the woman hears a voice about the death of Christ like any other common death. Secondly, the tomb of Christ is only a grave not the way to the other world. Thirdly, Christ was a man who died in a common way. He was not a divine to rise from his grave. The poet asserts, “We live an old chaos of the sun.” We must surrender ourselves to the world in which we live by having full faith in it. The poet has his faith in it against old religion.
Critical Appreciation of the Poem “Sunday Morning”:
Theme of the Poem:
As we study the most important and popular poem with the title “Sunday Morning” composed by Wallace Stevens we find that change is the law of Nature in this world. Such change of things as well as human life is the basic feature of the world in which we live. It is the changing feature of this world which gives wonderful beauty to it. Such change and beauty are not found in paradise.
Death is a Natural fact by which we know and admire the wonderful beauty of this world. The poet asserts in his popular saying, “Death is the mother of beauty”. All of us get happiness through constant contemplation about this beautiful world.
Though we get happiness after looking at the beautiful things of this world, yet we desire some lasting bliss more than the happiness received in this world. Religion tells us that we can hope to get such happiness only in paradise. “Sunday Morning” is an important poem in which the poet shows the dilemma of the modern man in relation to ideal happiness.
The Woman’s Desire for Lasting Bliss:
In the poem “Sunday Morning” we see a woman at her breakfast when her neighbours are in the church. Her coffee, oranges and the green coloured bird are in front of her. Even then she is feeling vexed on account of her opposite thoughts related to her desire for paradise. It shows a conflict in her mind between life and death as well as between this world and the other world.
The woman has a strong desire in her heart – of – hearts for an immortal bliss which can be found, as some people think, only in paradise. There is another feeling when “We live in an old chaos of the sun” (Stanza VIII). The poet says that there is beauty both in life and even in death. It is the end of life to face death like a tired bird. The following lines are quoted here from stanza VIII:
“A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old despondency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.”
As we study attentively we find that the woman’s thought was descending from complacency to awareness. The poet constantly thought to enjoy the sun and bright wings as his strong desire. He had a desire to see things from single angle but his such desire also remained in vain. Sometimes he came near to success and happiness.
The Poet’s feelings of the Contrast:
As we go on reading the poem “Sunday Morning”, in the early lines of the poem we find the description in a fine manner to show the context and the theme of the poem. The theme of the poem also shows the element between the woman’s sensuous sunny day and the dark holy Sunday related to the ancient sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The poet does not agree to the “Old Catastrophe” against the secular pleasure received from the sun. He also rejects the idea of immortal bliss in favour of the bliss reaching after the feature of change.
The poet admires Death as the fulfilment of all our desires, as:
“Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires……”
The poet regards mortality as a fine feature of human life. He used satire in using traditional ideas because he was in favour of change as an important part of worldly life. He declared that divinity resides in the self. It is clear from the following lines included in the Stanza II.
“Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow. ”
In this respect, Wallace Stevens may be compared to William Wordsworth and John Keats in the element of their grand style. It seems that he is trying to achieve the same sublimity of the great poets of the Romantic age.
According to the hearty desire of the poet the woman mentioned in the first stanza does not accept ‘The holy hush of ancient sacrifice’ related to the crucification of Jesus Christ because she seems to be satisfied with the pleasures of this world under the sun. She prefers the “The green freedom to the black bird. Here the poet asserts, “Death is the mother of beauty”, not an evil, or harsh mother.
God and Man as Opposites:
As we study the present poem “Sunday Morning” we find that the poet has used God and Man only as opposites. In fact, the poet shows that Man is superior to God because he sees reality in the existence of Man but, for him, God is only an illusion.
The woman mentioned in the first stanza of “Sunday Morning” is not related to pain and purity in death. She is more concerned with God and Man in opposition face to face. She prefers the element of change in the world to the static position in paradise. The poet also expresses the same type of his feelings in his another poem with the title “The Snow Man”. Like Susanna this woman is not afraid of death. It shows that she is purified under the expectation of the poet to admire worldly life with an element of confidence. She does not need any help from God. She needs her direct contact with numerous things under the sun. These lines show it:
“We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.” (Stanza VIII)
The Women in the Poem:
As we study the women included in the poems of Wallace Stevens we find that most of them show the same feelings and traits of their conduct and character. This rule applies to the main woman mentioned in his great and popular long poem “Sunday Morning”. There are some other women including Susanna in the volume of his poems with the title “Harmonium”. Almost most of them resemble one another in several traits of their character. They have the same feelings about God and religion.
Wallace Stevens wants to create weather as the main poetic progeny. For him, his Muse is that woman who can produce such progeny. The character of Susanna shows such holy function. It is her purity of character which can bring praise in relation to her beauty. Her maidenhood is related to the fine beauty of the green evening and to the lasting dawn.
Wallace Stevens’ Aesthetic Philosophy:
As we study the poet’s important poem, “Sunday Morning” we find his aesthetic philosophy included in the poem. It also shows the theory and the aesthetic philosophy of Walter Pater. The poet’s such philosophy is related to the aesthetic philosophy of Walter Pater. Some readers find the same idea in his sad tone expressed in the poem “Sunday Morning”. The stanza V shows the same idea when the poet concludes with his meaningful words like ‘relinquished to their feet’. Some of his readers look Paterian Theme in the poem but the poet called it only an expression of paganism.
The main theme of the poem “Sunday Morning” is expressed in these lines— “Death is the mother of beauty”, showing the essence of the subject matter discussed in the poem. In this way, this poem may be called both pensive as well as passionate. Such a fact depends if it shows a lost belief, or the existing pleasure.
The last stanza of this poem clearly shows these two ideas in clear opposition. For example, the woman mentioned in the first stanza of this poem had made her journey to the historic city of Palestine by way of her imagination. She was persuaded by a higher voice that Jesus Christ was dead and all hopes of his resurrection had also died.
After this the woman concluded that all men and women live in the temporal world which is free from the control and despotism of divine power. Such temporal world shows the presence of change and death in the case of all human beings and material things found in this material and changing world.
The Need of the Fullness of Life:
As we study the present poem “Sunday Morning” of Wallace Stevens attentively we find that the poet has conveyed his idea related to the need of the fullness of life. In this respect, his philosophy seems to be somewhat different from that of the poet, Walter Pater. The poet trusted in the happy life in this material world. With this reason he regarded death as the mother of beauty. On the other hand, Walter Pater composed his poetry with the chief purpose of pleasure.
Walter Pater asserted that we live in this world for the sake of getting pleasure, not as an end but also as a means to the fullness of life. The poet also includes ‘noble pain and sorrow’ in his gospel related to the fullness of life. Wallace Stevens also held the same idea in the last lines of his present poem “Sunday Morning” which gives stress on natural pleasures in this world. In the second stanza, the poet had given expression to various types of experience. In this stanza, the poet had related even God both with pleasure and pain. In short, the poet regarded poetry as the highest and most important fiction.
The Pensive and Passionate Moods in this Poem:
The study of the present poem “Sunday Morning” shows that it is an aesthetic poem out – and out. Its simple reason is that the great poet has included both the moods, pensive and passionate. Another poet and famous critic, Walter Pater has regarded “Sunday Morning” as one of the significant poems including the trait of both pleasure and pain as all of us experience in the course of our real living in this temporal world.
According to Walter Pater this poem is truly an aesthetic poem in which the desire for beauty is increased with the thinking of death. Stevens has incorporated both the pensive and passionate moods into the poem by his quality of diverse expression.
The woman mentioned in the first stanza of the poem shows her pensive mood under the state of her day – dreaming over her breakfast table. It may be called her happy mood, in the last stanza of the poem when she is satisfied with the pleasure and beauty related to the earth, or this world. The passionate mood is found in the activity of the voice of the boys who are giving plums and pears to the girls. The poet himself seems to support both the pensive and the passionate moods related to the fullness of human life.
