The Auroras of Autumn

1950 poetry book by Wallace Stevens

The Auroras of Autumn

First edition

Author| Wallace Stevens
Language| English
Genre| Poetry
Publisher| Alfred A. Knopf

Publication date

| September 1950
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print
Preceded by| Transport to Summer
Followed by| Collected Poems

The Auroras of Autumn is a 1950 book of poetry by Wallace Stevens. The book of poems contains the long poem of 10 cantos by Stevens of the same name.

## Contents

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The book features a collection of poems containing also the 1948 Stevens long poem of the same name, whose title refers to the aurora borealis, or the "Northern Lights", in the fall.[1] The book collects 32 Stevens poems written between 1947 and 1950, and was his last collection before his 1954 Collected Poems.[2]

The long poem in the book which is titled "The Auroras of Autumn" is a 240-line poem divided into ten cantos of 24 lines each. It is considered one of Stevens' more challenging and "difficult"[3] works, and a 20th-century example of the English Romantic tradition.[4] According to critic Harold Bloom, it is Stevens' only major poem "in which he allows himself to enter in his proper person, as a kind of dramatic figure."[5] On this reading, the poem comes to an early climax at the end of canto VI, where Stevens describes a tension between his own imagination and a disintegrative and elusive reality, his subject:

> This is nothing until in a single man contained,
>  Nothing until this named thing nameless is
>  And is destroyed. He opens the door of his house

> On flames. The scholar of one candle sees
>  An Arctic effulgence flaring on the frame
>  Of everything he is. And he feels afraid. [6]

Another notable poem in the book is "The Owl in the Sarcophagus", an elegy for Stevens' best friend, Henry Church.[7]

## Awards

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It won the 1951 National Book Award for Poetry.[8]

## Notes

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1. ^ "The Auroras of Autumn (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)". eNotes.com. Retrieved May 14, 2010.
2. ^ Cook, Eleanor. A Reader's Guide to Wallace Stevens (Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 237.
3. ^ Unsworth, John. "An Echo of Baudelaire in 'The Auroras of Autumn'," American Literature vol. 60, #1 (Mar. 1988).
4. ^ Finch, Annie (October 28, 2009). "The Poetry of Autumn: Forget spring. Fall is the season for poetry". Poetry Foundation.
5. ^ Bloom, Harold. In "Voices & Visions - Wallace Stevens." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV7czDrb5Fc&t=1775s
6. ^ Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
7. ^ Bloom, Harold (1980). Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate. Cornell University Press..
8. ^ "National Book Awards – 1951". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-02-25.
(With acceptance speech by Stevens and essay by Katie Peterson from the Awards 60-year anniversary publication.)

## References

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* Beckett, Lucy. Wallace Stevens (Cambridge University Press, 1974).

## External links

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* Review of The Auroras of Autumn in The New York Times (September 10, 1950)
* Guest lecture focusing on the poem The Auroras of Autumn (part of Open Yale Courses).

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