Post 20

With little previous knowledge of Wallace Stevens, I decided to search for some background information on wikipedia. The results I found were quite interesting.

In his poems that we read for class he discussed how happiness can be found without religion. He used examples in nature and so forth to prove his point that there doesn't need to be a "big guy" in the sky for it to provide happiness. However, 5 days before his death, Wallace Stevens was baptized by the chaplain of the St. Francis Hospital. I found this to be very strange because Mr. Stevens is not exactly living out his own creed.

However, it is possible that since he had time to cope with his cancer he grew scared of life after death and had nowhere else to turn but religion. He clearly knew that he was going to die. It is just a question of when. It's quite difficult to say whether or not he was religious before he discovered that he had a terminal illness. But, it does lead to some further thought about his poems. It is my conclusion that possibly writing those poems helped him realize how wrong he was, because happiness cannot be found in death with a comforting vision of the afterlife.