Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Blackbird is an abstract metaphysical poem by Wallace Stevens that was first published in 1917 and then added to his poetry collection Harmonium published in 1923.
Structure of Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Blackbird:
The poem is written in imitation of the haiku style. Haiku or Hokku is a Japanese verse form most often composed, in English versions, of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. A haiku often features an image, or a pair of images, meant to depict the essence of a specific moment in time. The poem doesn’t offer different ideas about a similar image of a Blackbird, rather it offers different sensations for the same sight. The poem has 13 sections or cantos and while all of them appear to be imitating Haiku style, none of them is truly a haiku. The poet used simile, imagery, and metaphor to offer different sensations for the minimal sketches he draws in these thirteen cantos. The poem is modernist and follows the pattern of cubism. In Cubist literature, the subjects are analyzed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstract form—instead of expressing objects from a single perspective, the author depicts the subject from multiple perspectives to represent the subject in a greater context. Wallace expresses the seemingly common and ordinary blackbird in a way that makes it anything but ordinary because at a given instant, perception alters—depending on the physical environment—the action of the bird and the effect on the mind of the perceiver. While reading the poem, the reader would normally stress over the phrase ‘to be’ to understand it.
Themes:
The major theme of the poem is Subjectivity versus Reality. The poet suggests that there is no single correct way of seeing the world. Instead, the poem implies that reality is subjective and can be defined by whoever's looking at it. In the first canto, the poet plays with the word ‘eye,’ depicting it as ‘I’ the pronoun depicting Individual. Through this ‘I’ people perceive things in the world, not just the blackbird, but anything in general. The true essence of the reality of the blackbird or any other thing is altered by the perception of ‘I’ from person to person and it differs in different situations too. The author suggests that truth is not one singular entity—but a whole range of possibilities, all held in a kind of irresolvable tension. It may appear like the quantum theory that suggests that unless observed things remain in a state of superimposition and take a definite shape only when they are observed. Thus, the reality is dependent on the observer and hence, it is subjective and there is no singular, true reality.
Another theme of the poem is death. The blackbird, a raven represents death, it is no ordinary bird or crow. It outlasts all other creatures., in the snow, stands in as a muse for the speaker, and appears in several different forms. The bird is made up of more than its simple physiology. It contains beauty, innuendos, and eccentricities which separate it from other creatures.
Summary of Thirteen Ways to Look at A Blackbird:
It is a circular poem that begins in a barren snow desert surrounded by over twenty mountains, then moves towards human society, and then returns to the sparse snowy terrain as if completing the circle of life. The poet depicts a blackbird or different blackbirds in all thirteen cantos, but the blackbird isn’t the subject of all these cantos.
Canto I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
The first stanza contains contrast, exaggeration, and imagery. It is a tercet of 8, 6, and 7 syllables. The poet depicts a small blackbird in a large white expanse of snowy terrain surrounded by twenty mountains. There is a Juxtaposition of Thirteen in the title and ‘Twenty’ mountains. Thirteen is a prime number indivisible by any other than one and itself while 20 is an even number clearly divisible by 2, 4, 5, or 10, along with 1 and 20 itself. There is a contrast between the blackbird and the white snow. The bird appears as a tiny black spot on a huge white background. Again the eye of the blackbird is mostly white except for the little black pupil of the blackbird’s eye. Thus, the poet imagines a picture within the picture or all white with a tiny black spot. The poet uses exaggeration to suggest that the only moving thing in the scene is the black pupil of the blackbird. The bird doesn’t move nor shake its neck but its pupil does move. Imagine a tiny black spot moving in a whole white background surrounded by blackness which is again situated in an all-white expanse. It is difficult to imagine that nothing else moves.
Canto 2
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
The poet uses first person narrative to relate with the bird and uses a simile “like a tree” which suggests the tree of life. The poet is depicting an old memory and thus uses the past tense. The poet was in three minds (rather than two minds). While the blackbird was keenly observing the snowy terrain, the poet was observing the blackbird and he could imagine the bird in three ways. The first appears ‘to be’ a tiny black spot surrounded by a huge white expanse of snow, and the second appears ‘to be’ a tiny white speck of eye surrounded by the whole black body of the blackbird. The third appears ‘to be’ a further small black spot in the larger white expanse of the eye of the blackbird.
Wallace simply played with the expression of ‘being in two minds’ and expressed that he could see three possibilities, three birds, each bird representing a different state of mind.
Canto 3
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
This is complete with no rhyming scheme but employs alliteration and assonance. The scene has been changed, everything is moving with the winds and the bird is also flying in a peculiar whirling motion. The whole appears like a Pantomime, a drama with no dialogue with expressions presented through motion. The blackbird is a part of the pantomime. The season has also been changed and it appears to be autumn, a time of high winds, blown leaves, and uncontrollable birds.
Canto 4
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
In this stanza, the poet offers a completely alienated viewpoint. He offers a viewpoint of non-dualism and suggests that there is no difference between a man and a woman, both are the same, or one, both are living, and so is the blackbird. There is no distinction other than the three, man, woman, and the bird is alive, representing one force of life. It can also be interpreted as a man and a woman copulating and while they are sharing intimacy, the blackbird observes them and sensually becomes one with them.
Canto 5
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
The poet is ‘two minds’ now. He listens to the whistling sound of the blackbird and he cannot decide whether should he appreciate the ‘inflection’ of the musical sound as the blackbird sings, or should he cherish the silence just after the whistle, offering innuendoes or instructions while the whistle still lingers in the ear of the listener.
Canto 6
Icicles filled the long window / With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird / Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood / Traced in the shadow / An indecipherable cause.
Canto 6 is a seven lines stanza with a full rhyme in lines 1, 4, and 6 (window, to and fro, and shadow) and lines 2, 7, and 3, 5 in slant rhyme (glass, cause), blackbird, mood). The blackbird began from a snowy barren land surrounded by ice-capped mountains and then it flew and is now in human society as it sits near a glass window of a house. It is cold outside while the poet sees through the glass of the window. He observes flakes of ice on the old glass window and while he is not able to see the blackbird, he sees the shadow of the bird on the glass. And then the poet explains what these varied scenes and situations are, these are his moods, his sensations that are influencing the shadow of the blackbird but the poet cannot understand that influence.
These lines can also be interpreted as the blackbird flies to and fro, casting its shadow on the glass window, the poet fails to decipher the mood of the blackbird, what is causing it to hop here and there. The poet knows that it is the shadow of the moving blackbird but some other observer may fail to interpret the moving shadow and would wonder what is causing the moving shadow.
Canto 7
O thin men of Haddam, / Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird / Walks around the feet / Of the women about you?
Canto 7 is 5 lines long in which Stevens names a place, Haddam. He expresses another viewpoint of the shadow of the blackbird on the window. Some thin men from Haddam observe the moving shadow and they imagine it to be caused by a moving golden bird which shows their richness and extravagance. They imagine of some exotic things while blackbirds are so common in the area. However, their perception is too materialistic.
Canto 8
I know noble accents / And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too, / That the blackbird is involved / In what I know.
Again a five-line verse with first-person narrative and caesurae in lines 2, and 3.
The poet says that he knows a lot of beautiful and pleasurable things that are liked. He knows the accent of the high noble class and he is aware of enchanting light (lucid) rhythms. But he says that all these pleasurable things remind him of the blackbird.
Canto 9
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
The blackbird doesn’t stay for long and flies away afar, out of sight. Wallace uses Juxtaposition again. The poet says that all that he knows is based on his observation of the blackbird and when it flies away, it marks ‘the edge’ of his life. As the blackbird flies away, the expanse of his knowledge also continues to increase and marks a new boundary to it while he is at the center. There can be infinite circles with the same center, and the blackbird marks one out of them. The juxtaposition is between the edge of a circle and the edge of one’s own life. Each person or creature has his or her own horizon at a particular moment, so the horizon that the blackbird reaches is only one of many. The circles of the poet and reader may differ as they are subjective.
Canto 10
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
In these lines, the poet suggests that the blackbird can influence everybody and even a heartless much less sensitive bawd, or the madam of a brothel will feel the pain of the blackbird’s whistle and will start crying.
Also, the poet compares the natural whistle song of the blackbird with the euphony (highly pleasing sound) of artificial, professional pleasure providers and suggests that the blackbird’s whistle is much more impressive.
Canto 11
He rode over Connecticut / In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him, / In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage / For blackbirds.
In this section, the poet informs about the progress of an unknown man from his home state of Connecticut as he traveled in his ‘glass coach’ a carriage made of glass windows ridden by horses. As the man saw the shadow of his own carrier, he was frightened as he mistook the shadow for the shadow of the blackbird. Why would a man fear blackbirds? Either the poet is making fun of this man, or he is suggesting that the blackbird isn’t a mere bird, but is a symbol of a much greater force, the force of life that takes it forwards, the force of death.
Canto 12
The river is moving. / The blackbird must be flying.
In the only canto in which the poet uses the present tense. In this section the poet suggests that there must be some entanglement between the river and the blackbird, if the river is moving, the bird must also be flying. The river is the river of life that continues to flow from mountains to the sea and back again.
A moving river also suggests the melting of ice. The poem begins in cold frozen terrain and the movement began in autumn. Now as spring approaches, the ice is melting and rivers are moving. It must be the time for the blackbird to migrate and hence, the poet is sure that the blackbird is flying.
Canto 13
It was evening all afternoon. / It was snowing
And it was going to snow. / The blackbird sat / In the cedar-limbs.
The poet again brings the image of the past and describes the blackbird when he saw it during the winter. He cannot see the blackbird right now because it is springtime and the blackbird has migrated away. The poet describes the day when it was heavily snowing continuously from afternoon to evening when he saw the blackbird sitting in the cedar limb, a common place where the poet often observed the bird sitting.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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