"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is one of the most famous poems by the American modernist

poet Wallace Stevens. The poem appears in Stevens' widely distributed and influential debut

collection, Harmonium, published in 1923 (Silverman, 1972). The meaning of the poem is

known for its ambiguity, but two verses of the same length represent a fairly clear scenario.

An old woman died, and in the first verse the speaker gives instructions to others about

funerals and memorials. The poems are of a memorial or funeral nature, and are prepared in a

place that looks like someone's home. For example, the speaker tells “wenches " to wear "the

dress they are wearing [...]". The word “wenches " can refer to a maid, prostitute, or just a

girl. However, this means that the typical "dress" is an unfashionable working class woman

(Strobel, 1983). And the flowers must be wrapped in the "last month's newspaper" and

carried. Readers often interpret poetry as evidence of the victory of the end of life over the

silence of death. This is not necessarily some kind of heroic victory, but a broader question

about the nature of experience.

References

Silverman, S. (1972) ‘The Emperor of Ice-Cream’, Western Humanities Review. University

of Utah Press, etc., 26(2), p. 165.

Strobel, S. H. (1983) ‘Stevens’ the Emperor of Ice Cream’, The Explicator. Taylor & Francis,

41(4), pp. 33–35.