Student: Ana-Maria Nichita

3rd group, 3rd year, Romanian major

Instructor: Emilia Postolache
American Literature
March 25, 2009

Language in Wallace Stevens’ Poem

“A Study of the Two Pears”

Study of the two pears is representative for the Modernity mostly because of the language
used and because of the association of reality with imagination which creates interesting images
in our minds, transforming the poet’s own perception into words.
The language is used in a very ambiguous way; combining Latin idioms and common
language, the image of the painting appears as taken from the poet’s imagination. The poem is a
definition of the two pears but the image which the poet creates is a combination between the
physical world and his own imagination, transforming everydayness in art.1
The first stanza starts with the Latin expression “Opusculum paedagogum”2 and speaks
about what the pears are not and then states, in the second stanza, what the pears are. The
negation leads us to an affirmative idea, in the end the image of the pears being the image of
what the poet wants to show us, raising in our mind the image of what pears are trough the poet’s
eyes: “The shadows of the pears/ Are blobs on the green cloth./ The pears are not seen/ As the
observer wills.”(21-24)3
The language used seems to be formal and structured because of the first Latin verse and
the stated definition seems ironical but the poet’s sense of world is seen as the world itself:
“They are yellow forms”(5)4. When saying that the pears are “forms”, Stevens may refer to that
fact that the observer is the only one who can see what pears really are. Stevens may consider
himself as being the original observer who is the only one who sees the essence of the observed
object, which in this poem is the pear itself. The poet is in front of a painting and the poem is the
result of his imagination.
 The word “Study” can be interpreted as an art of words or as an art review. The pears are
in Stevens mind the image of the ideal art, of an ideal existence. It is a closed relationship
between reality and imagination, as the everydayness is transformed into art trough imagination.
In the poem Study of the two pears this relation is marked by the two visions of the ideal
– the poet’s vision of the pears and the vision of the readers which is also lead by Stevens. The
juxtaposition of images such as “viols”, “nudes”, or “bottles” that have least relationship with
pears invokes readers’ imagination – pears are nothing but pears and here the image of these
fruits is the image he sees trough his imagination in front of the painting. The poet combines
conventional meanings with familiar objects in order to describe the two pears: “The shadows of
the pears/ Are blobs on the green cloth” (21-22)5.
The detailed language description of pears in the following stanzas gives us a vivid
picture which imposes strong visual effect on the “observer” in what concerns the shape, color,
outline and resemblance derived from painting. They seem to appear with uncharacteristic "bits
of blue" (14) and "glistens with various yellows, / Citrons, oranges and greens“ (17-18).
The appearance of color images, such as “blue”, “green” and “yellow” makes the pears
look very different, from a different point of view, like a sculpture created by an artist seen from
different perspectives. Actually the poet contemplates a painting and tries then to recreate the
image he sees. Within its language the poet and reader are elevating to a state of transcendence,
transforming perception into words.
Stevens’ language is common but the combination he makes is unexpectable; the reality
is for Stevens made of physical elements and imagination. He makes connections with common
objects in order to stress the beauty of the image he perceives and wants to describe for his
readers.
A study of the two pears is one of the cases when the poet is crossing the reality trough
his own imagination and tries to convince his reader to make this too. We are speaking about the
modernity era when the authors either tried to remain deeply into the reality, either tried to
escape from the reality trough their imagination like Stevens did.
1
Seeing a painting appears here in a very different and artistically way
2
Refers to a little work which teaches, a sort of a guide
3
Wallace Stevens, Collected Poetry and Prose, New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1997
4
Wallace Stevens, Collected Poetry and Prose, New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1997
5
Wallace Stevens, Collected Poetry and Prose, New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1997