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The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination
In this collection of essays, consummate poet Wallace Stevens reflects upon his art. His aim is not to produce a work of criticism or philosophy, or a mere discussion of poetic technique. As he explains in his introduction, his ambition in these various pieces, published in different times and places, aimed higher than that, in the direction of disclosing "poetry itself, the naked poem, the imagination manifesting itself in its domination of words." Stevens proves himself as eloquent and scintillating in prose as in poetry, as he both analyzes and demonstrates the essential act of repossessing reality through the imagination.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
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About the author
Wallace Stevens
197 books487 followersWallace Stevens is a rare example of a poet whose main output came at a fairly advanced age. His first major publication (four poems from a sequence entitled "Phases" in the November 1914 edition of Poetry Magazine) was written at the age of thirty-five, although as an undergraduate at Harvard, Stevens had written poetry and exchanged sonnets with George Santayana, with whom he was close through much of his life. Many of his canonical works were written well after he turned fifty. According to the literary critic Harold Bloom, who called Stevens the "best and most representative" American poet of the time, no Western writer since Sophocles has had such a late flowering of artistic genius.
Stevens attended Harvard as a non-degree special student, after which he moved to New York City and briefly worked as a journalist. He then attended New York Law School, graduating in 1903. On a trip back to Reading in 1904 Stevens met Elsie Viola Kachel; after a long courtship, he married her in 1909. In 1913, the young couple rented a New York City apartment from sculptor Adolph A. Weinman, who made a bust of Elsie.
A daughter, Holly, was born in 1924. She later edited her father's letters and a collection of his poems.
After working for several New York law firms from 1904 to 1907, he was hired on January 13, 1908 as a lawyer for the American Bonding Company. By 1914 he had become the vice-president of the New York Office of the Equitable Surety Company of St. Louis, Missouri. When this job was abolished as a result of mergers in 1916, he joined the home office of Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company and left New York City to live in Hartford, where he would remain for the rest of his life.
Stevens attended Harvard as a non-degree special student, after which he moved to New York City and briefly worked as a journalist. He then attended New York Law School, graduating in 1903. On a trip back to Reading in 1904 Stevens met Elsie Viola Kachel; after a long courtship, he married her in 1909. In 1913, the young couple rented a New York City apartment from sculptor Adolph A. Weinman, who made a bust of Elsie.
A daughter, Holly, was born in 1924. She later edited her father's letters and a collection of his poems.
After working for several New York law firms from 1904 to 1907, he was hired on January 13, 1908 as a lawyer for the American Bonding Company. By 1914 he had become the vice-president of the New York Office of the Equitable Surety Company of St. Louis, Missouri. When this job was abolished as a result of mergers in 1916, he joined the home office of Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company and left New York City to live in Hartford, where he would remain for the rest of his life.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
May 11, 2018
A rare and thought-proving book on language, prose, poetry, art, painting, and creativity. “We live in the mind,” Stevens says in speaking about transmitting your imagination. There are moral and philosophical essays here and even the act of dying is examined. I especially liked his chapter on Imagination as Value. This is far more than a book about poets or poetry—Wallace Stevens being a poet who writes with grace and intelligence. I read this book along with his “The Collected Poems,” another compelling book to keep on the nightstand and read a poem a night. The thoughts in The Necessary Angel will certainly enlarge life and reality from the ordinary. His precise prose brings the action of the imagination into a deep perspective. It’s the kind of book you can open at random and find a line that opens you up as well.
January 16, 2014
For Wallace Stevens, the real and the abstract were interwoven in ways that begged his decoding, which he turned into poems that stretched our imaginations. We are blessed that he tries to describe his gift in the essays of this book.
He attempts to define poetry, philosophy, reality, and imagination and to reveal the relations between them. Given the complexity of many of his poems, one might think that he starts from an abstract perspective and works toward the real, but this quote is revealing and summarizes a good bit of what he says:
"the poet must get rid of the hieratic in everything that concerns him and must move constantly in the direction of the credible. He must create his unreal out of what is real."
This book is deep, but it is accessible. Wallace had such a gift for expressing complex thoughts and realities in less complex ways. I very much appreciated his emphasis on imagination and its role in writing as well as reading, and, for that matter, in seeing the everyday world around us.
A little analogy to part of what Stevens said is that my late Dad, who was a relatively well-known landscape artist, told me when I was young that art is illusion: a few dabs of paint of proper texture, color, depth and length could create the illusion of xyz, where xyz is a tree or rock or even a person or what have you. The artist must know what to leave out as well as what to add in, in order that the imagination be given what it wants to see.
In his own way Stevens is making the same sort of point for poetry (along with numerous other points).
I think anyone interested in writing, be that poetry or fiction or non-fiction, would do well to really study this book.
He attempts to define poetry, philosophy, reality, and imagination and to reveal the relations between them. Given the complexity of many of his poems, one might think that he starts from an abstract perspective and works toward the real, but this quote is revealing and summarizes a good bit of what he says:
"the poet must get rid of the hieratic in everything that concerns him and must move constantly in the direction of the credible. He must create his unreal out of what is real."
This book is deep, but it is accessible. Wallace had such a gift for expressing complex thoughts and realities in less complex ways. I very much appreciated his emphasis on imagination and its role in writing as well as reading, and, for that matter, in seeing the everyday world around us.
A little analogy to part of what Stevens said is that my late Dad, who was a relatively well-known landscape artist, told me when I was young that art is illusion: a few dabs of paint of proper texture, color, depth and length could create the illusion of xyz, where xyz is a tree or rock or even a person or what have you. The artist must know what to leave out as well as what to add in, in order that the imagination be given what it wants to see.
In his own way Stevens is making the same sort of point for poetry (along with numerous other points).
I think anyone interested in writing, be that poetry or fiction or non-fiction, would do well to really study this book.
September 12, 2017
Loads of filling. Don't remember it being "necessary" at all. Greatest moment (I quote by memory): "Those ones who put all their soul into their poetry cannot bear sugarcoated poetry made by poseurs as a hobby."
October 26, 2011
I read the first essay of this book about a year ago and was blown away. The writing style was convoluted and logically frayed... but the punchline was good enough that I am still trying to figure out how best to ink it on my skin.
So, as I began to prepare for my final thesis, I knew full well that the first essay would be a part of it... "nobility is the violence within us that presses back against the violence from without"... but I felt nauseous at the thought that I would include it without having read the rest of the book. Intellectually negligent.
Having finished it about a month ago, I finally have found a moment to write about it... and I must say nothing compares to that first essay. The book as a whole suffers from a repetition of concepts, as though we need this many tiny variations on his endless championing of poetry as the thread that can weave together reality and imagination... and I can assure you that I do not need all of them.
But the flashes of brilliance keep shining through the knotty sentences, and so you keep reading. And I am glad I did, because there were some further developments of thought that I believe will be helpful in my writing.
Overall though, I wish he had applied some of his skill and intelligence to other ideas and subjects... like, just off the top of my head... perhaps an essay on the question of suicide as it relates to imagination, or the problem of familiarity as it hampers aesthetic imagination, or the issues of commodification of the text... or gods, anything else! How can he be so insightful and so myopic simultaneously?!?!
Oh well... I am still going to get that tattoo.
So, as I began to prepare for my final thesis, I knew full well that the first essay would be a part of it... "nobility is the violence within us that presses back against the violence from without"... but I felt nauseous at the thought that I would include it without having read the rest of the book. Intellectually negligent.
Having finished it about a month ago, I finally have found a moment to write about it... and I must say nothing compares to that first essay. The book as a whole suffers from a repetition of concepts, as though we need this many tiny variations on his endless championing of poetry as the thread that can weave together reality and imagination... and I can assure you that I do not need all of them.
But the flashes of brilliance keep shining through the knotty sentences, and so you keep reading. And I am glad I did, because there were some further developments of thought that I believe will be helpful in my writing.
Overall though, I wish he had applied some of his skill and intelligence to other ideas and subjects... like, just off the top of my head... perhaps an essay on the question of suicide as it relates to imagination, or the problem of familiarity as it hampers aesthetic imagination, or the issues of commodification of the text... or gods, anything else! How can he be so insightful and so myopic simultaneously?!?!
Oh well... I am still going to get that tattoo.
March 15, 2016
"The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words" is the 1st essay. Stevens goes back to Plato and the Phaedrus where a charioteer must deal with two horses: one that can fly and one that can't. Stevens compares them to reality and the imagination. I consider Mr. Stevens to be a poet who writes about imagination quite often. Imagination is "the necessary angel."
He writes at one point about the logical positivists. It must have been an exciting time to have those philosophers as contemporaries. It also shows that Stevens kept up with philosophy. He quotes A. J. Ayer: "It is fashionable to speak of the metaphysician as a kind of misplaced poet." And Stevens, an atheist, is not a metaphysician.
Stevens also speaks of "cleansing the imagination of the romantic. . . . The imagination is one of the great human powers. The romantic belittles it. The imagination is the liberty of the mind. The romantic is a failure to make use of that liberty. . . . The imagination is the only genius."
In another essay, Stevens criticizes modern poetry for "in which the exploitation of form involves nothing more than the use of small letters for capitals, eccentric line-endings, too little or too much punctuation, and similar aberrations."
I have not learned much from these essays, which are filled with digressions that seem to lead nowhere. The book is probably strictly for Stevensphiles like myself.
He writes at one point about the logical positivists. It must have been an exciting time to have those philosophers as contemporaries. It also shows that Stevens kept up with philosophy. He quotes A. J. Ayer: "It is fashionable to speak of the metaphysician as a kind of misplaced poet." And Stevens, an atheist, is not a metaphysician.
Stevens also speaks of "cleansing the imagination of the romantic. . . . The imagination is one of the great human powers. The romantic belittles it. The imagination is the liberty of the mind. The romantic is a failure to make use of that liberty. . . . The imagination is the only genius."
In another essay, Stevens criticizes modern poetry for "in which the exploitation of form involves nothing more than the use of small letters for capitals, eccentric line-endings, too little or too much punctuation, and similar aberrations."
I have not learned much from these essays, which are filled with digressions that seem to lead nowhere. The book is probably strictly for Stevensphiles like myself.
May 7, 2015
Curious, inspiring essays on perception and art - the question of the importance of imagination and its effect on reality. It follows in the veins of the philosophical perception, how everyone's experience and person defines things differently.
Fascinating that Stevens's prose is much more baroque and Henry James-like in comparison to his beautiful but terse and immense poetry. Still he forces you to work with him, battle with him, through these questions.
Fascinating that Stevens's prose is much more baroque and Henry James-like in comparison to his beautiful but terse and immense poetry. Still he forces you to work with him, battle with him, through these questions.
June 14, 2014
A little angel said to me, "I'm an angel and you were once too," and he was well pleased. All Stevens' work viewed in light of his baptism at 75, right before his death, shows its truth. Then angel showed me what that meant. This music appeared in the March elimae http://www.elimae.com/2010/03/RevStev.... Angel wouldn't shut up though, woke me again in the AM that there is a something greater than imagination once you know to sing. Now I find a dusty Auroras of Autumn, from Santa Fe 20 years ago, and opening read "Page From A Tale," where he cites Yeats, in italics, four times. Yes! the angel said, "my tongue is a lute, my heart a lyre!"
December 28, 2007
Stevens' one book of collected prose. It really helps to ground and explain his poetry.
December 30, 2009
Some good essays in here...worth reading...but not the absolute necessary angel the title leads you to believe.
May 15, 2012
Stevens is a brilliant thinker, and I love how he moves between philosophy and his work as a writer in regards to how we seek truth. Smart, well written, and thoroughly engaging.
May 30, 2022
Stevens is interesting on poetic techniques but not theory of poetry let alone philosophical aesthetics.
July 8, 2021
This is an intelligent, furious book, and its intensely cerebral nature left me squirming, but I found a lot of the philosophy too dense and abstract to actively "enjoy" as one normally "enjoys" a book. It is very rewarding, but it is also a very demanding collection of essays, and requires a certain amount of rigor to understand. Many sentences required two, if not more, passes, to be able to completely process.
Wittgenstein said once that "philosophy should be written only as one writes poetry," and I believe that hews close to what Stevens does in his poems, only in reverse. Here, we have a curious ad-mixture of the two, Stevens' philosophy of art and the artist.
I enjoy Stevens' poetry, but I always feel like the author is keeping me at arm's length from the meaning of things, and doing so deliberately, which to me is antithetical to the art form. His writing has often overwhelmed me as being an unnerving marriage of the discrete and the abstract, and that's also true in most of these essays. In fact, reading these helped me to better understand the genesis, if not the meaning, of some of his poems, even if I haven't fully understood most of the essays themselves, as yet.
I was almost turned off by the beginning. Stevens comes off as (and perhaps this is a prejudice of my modern eye) a grumpy old man, railing about the "state of things." Thankfully, he moves away from this style of observation rather quickly, and once he's defined his terms, he swiftly enters into his philosophy of them.
I don't think I agree, necessarily, with everything that Stevens suggests is "true" about the artist's duty, but I like what he says about the artist's imagination, and their connections with/interactions with the world around them. He considers that the 'ultimate function' of the artist is:
I agree with him in the latter half of the quote - I believe poetry (or perhaps, in a larger sense, art?) is the closest thing we have to telepathy. I also believe that, if done well, this can be an awesome power. Stevens goes on to say that this power should be wielded for good - and, in fact, could even broaden our collective vision of what is possible for society to achieve. In this way, the artist possesses a unique 'nobility.' But Stevens puts a yoke on the artist by saying that this 'nobility' is what all art should strive towards, and that sort of "limitation" is what distances me from this author.
Frustratingly, Stevens uses incredible, gorgeous language to make his points, and these essays include startling moments of phrasing that literally stopped me in my reading to go back over and read out loud because of their composition. They glint like diamonds. For example:
Despite the frustrating and often incredibly dense and philosophical nature of these essays, the manner in which Stevens expresses himself practically sings. I have a feeling I will be returning to these thoughts again. There, for me, is the true value of these essays - if I want something to dip into and tickle my brain for a few hours, to turn over and over in my hands and fascinate over all the different angles, this is a perfect entry-point for that activity.
Wittgenstein said once that "philosophy should be written only as one writes poetry," and I believe that hews close to what Stevens does in his poems, only in reverse. Here, we have a curious ad-mixture of the two, Stevens' philosophy of art and the artist.
I enjoy Stevens' poetry, but I always feel like the author is keeping me at arm's length from the meaning of things, and doing so deliberately, which to me is antithetical to the art form. His writing has often overwhelmed me as being an unnerving marriage of the discrete and the abstract, and that's also true in most of these essays. In fact, reading these helped me to better understand the genesis, if not the meaning, of some of his poems, even if I haven't fully understood most of the essays themselves, as yet.
I was almost turned off by the beginning. Stevens comes off as (and perhaps this is a prejudice of my modern eye) a grumpy old man, railing about the "state of things." Thankfully, he moves away from this style of observation rather quickly, and once he's defined his terms, he swiftly enters into his philosophy of them.
I don't think I agree, necessarily, with everything that Stevens suggests is "true" about the artist's duty, but I like what he says about the artist's imagination, and their connections with/interactions with the world around them. He considers that the 'ultimate function' of the artist is:
Certainly it is not to lead people out of the confusion in which they find themselves. Nor is it, I think, to comfort them while they follow their readers to and fro. I think that [the artist’s] function is to make his imagination theirs and that he fulfills himself only as he sees his imagination become the light in the minds of others.
I agree with him in the latter half of the quote - I believe poetry (or perhaps, in a larger sense, art?) is the closest thing we have to telepathy. I also believe that, if done well, this can be an awesome power. Stevens goes on to say that this power should be wielded for good - and, in fact, could even broaden our collective vision of what is possible for society to achieve. In this way, the artist possesses a unique 'nobility.' But Stevens puts a yoke on the artist by saying that this 'nobility' is what all art should strive towards, and that sort of "limitation" is what distances me from this author.
Frustratingly, Stevens uses incredible, gorgeous language to make his points, and these essays include startling moments of phrasing that literally stopped me in my reading to go back over and read out loud because of their composition. They glint like diamonds. For example:
As a wave is a force and not the water of which it is composed, which is never the same, so nobility is a force and not the manifestations of which it is composed, which are never the same ... It is not an artifice that the mind has added to human nature. The mind has added nothing to human nature. It is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without.(emphasis mine)
Despite the frustrating and often incredibly dense and philosophical nature of these essays, the manner in which Stevens expresses himself practically sings. I have a feeling I will be returning to these thoughts again. There, for me, is the true value of these essays - if I want something to dip into and tickle my brain for a few hours, to turn over and over in my hands and fascinate over all the different angles, this is a perfect entry-point for that activity.
February 15, 2015
A challenging read, one that deserves a better-informed, closer reader than me. Stevens's task is not an easy one, writing about the effects of poetry on the imagination. His essays are analogies about the idea of analogy.
Rather than verse that depends on prosodic effects (rhythm, rhyme) and imagery, what we might call poetry of perception, his is a poetry of apperception, one that
in the act of satisfying the desire for resemblance it touches the sense of reality, it enhances the the sense of reality, heightens it. (p. 77)
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August 20, 2023This is one of those great books where almost every sentence is so essential to the overall argument that once you've stepped away from the actual business of reading, it's hard to express in any quick or easy way what you've just been immersed in.* This probably means, of course, that I'll have to keep going back to it from time to time—and the thickness of the essays makes sense, give the fact that Stevens was, after all, a poet.
*(Note that this quality also makes it difficult to provide a quantitative rating, which is in no way a bad thing.)
*(Note that this quality also makes it difficult to provide a quantitative rating, which is in no way a bad thing.)
April 14, 2016
This selection of essays represents Stevens's thought about the craft and meaning of poetry. Based primarily on talks that he gave over a period of years the essays are informative while also being difficult and problematical at times. In their difficulty they mirror much of his poetry.
April 24, 2018
This is the rare book, like Treasure of the Humble by Maeterlinck or The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson, that unexpectedly transports the reader to a realm of serenity, not as an escape from reality, but as a pleasant reminder of the good in life.
June 26, 2007
really empowering stuff about the role of the artist, and a good explanation of literary modernism.
September 16, 2024
What are the chances that a well-known poet should write an essay about poetry and make it so abhorrently dull? The title itself is appealing, sure: we do believe of poetry, and of the arts in general, to be necessary for humankind's sanity; yet at its core, the arts must remain a mystery inasmuch life itself is a mystery. The essays are extremely abstract, way too formal, lack any beauty or inspiring moment: my bet is their dryness comes from the fact that they were written as university conferences at first. Beware, future reader: you will not find here the reason why poetry is important to you or to us, but one of those texts that will almost ignite the fire of rage within you —how could a topic with such potential be made so impotent?
September 24, 2020
It's not a terribly breezy read, thus 4 instead of 5 stars. But, some of the poems were like lightning strikes to my soul. In a great way. Some of the thoughts, as well, in the essays, have turned out to be pretty formative. It's a helpful book to read when you want to try and "get" modern and post-modern art. It conveys a very artsy and I think, deep, way of thinking. I suggest reading it with a pen and highlighter, to annotate it with things it makes you think and to underscore poetry you think is fantastic. I've enjoyed flipping back through the book many times since the first time I read it, just to see the bits I highlighted originally.
February 13, 2018
Currently re-thinking King Lear’s depictions of resemblances out of control. Stevens’ meditation on how resemblance creates meaning by intensifying structures of reality was a fertile point of departure in considering how the play deviates from this. Though I doubt that his definition of poetry as “elevated truth” was new even in his day.
April 19, 2019
There’s really something uniquely annoying about literary types awkwardly writing about philosophy; Stevens is a prime example, though see also Harold Bloom, Gore Vidal, Susan Sontag, William Gass, et al. I imagine it’s similar to a quantum physicist reading a New Age book about “quantum healing” and just facepalming on every page, or a theologian reading literally anything that Dawkins has written for a popular audience.
It’s not that you need to be an expert in something to write about it, but there’s this weird peremptory sense of ownership that literary critics have, as if Plato is just another novelist or writer at the Paris Review who can be casually dropped into a discussion . . . the audacity is really something else.
It’s not that you need to be an expert in something to write about it, but there’s this weird peremptory sense of ownership that literary critics have, as if Plato is just another novelist or writer at the Paris Review who can be casually dropped into a discussion . . . the audacity is really something else.
March 29, 2025
The Simone Weil mention! This was great - feel like I was drawn in less by its subject (poetry) than by the immediacy and beauty of his passion for it! A lot of ideas worth reflecting on for me, mainly related to his théorization of lived reality
February 1, 2018
Read in my Poetics class.
January 14, 2023
plantea reflexiones interesantes sobre la relación de la realidad y la imaginación en la poesía
October 9, 2024
I don't remember a damn thing from this.
June 30, 2016
An impression: Through out his life, Wallace Stevens had a profound interest in imagination: its meaning, value,
and position in art and letters and how it is tied to reality and reason. Can one merely reason beauty or the normal within the abnormal? Imagination enables us to live beyond terror and suffering; it gives validity to our inner identity. It allows us to handle reality without fantasy, fear and doctrine. Poetic expression, for example, blends reality with fiction, allowing for heart and humanity. Imagination is the "Necessary Angel" (fictive) that takes us by the hand (the real) and leads us confidently out of the saturnine in our lives.
and position in art and letters and how it is tied to reality and reason. Can one merely reason beauty or the normal within the abnormal? Imagination enables us to live beyond terror and suffering; it gives validity to our inner identity. It allows us to handle reality without fantasy, fear and doctrine. Poetic expression, for example, blends reality with fiction, allowing for heart and humanity. Imagination is the "Necessary Angel" (fictive) that takes us by the hand (the real) and leads us confidently out of the saturnine in our lives.
May 20, 2015
I’m glad I read this book. It was not an easy read. There are several, pretty brief essays, on philosophy, art, poetry and the imagination. The author seems to make statements in the most difficult way possible, but they are thoughtful and thought provoking nonetheless. I read it, I paid attention, and I have a few things to think about as regards metaphor, and the imagination and art.
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February 12, 2011"What has just been said demonstrates that there are degrees of the imagination, as, for example, degrees of vitality and, therefore, of intensity. It is an implication that there are degrees of reality."
-The Noble Rider, 2
-The Noble Rider, 2
June 30, 2022
Acquired 1994
The Word, Montreal, Quebec
The Word, Montreal, Quebec
Currently reading
October 15, 2008This is a library book and my favorite part so far is "Reality is things as they are." underlined with !!!!!!!!!!!Remember!!!!!!!! written in the margin.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews