Sunday Morning (poem)
"Sunday Morning" is a poem from Wallace Stevens' first book of poetry, Harmonium. Published in part in the November 1915 issue of Poetry, then in full in 1923 in Harmonium, it is now in the public domain. The first published version can be read at the Poetry web site: The literary critic Yvor Winters considered "Sunday Morning" "the greatest American poem of the twentieth century and... certainly one of the greatest contemplative poems in English" (Johnson, 100).
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
And in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.
About this poem Stevens wrote that it was "simply an expression of paganism". A woman enjoying the comforts of staying home on Sunday morning begins to think about the requirements and the spiritual rewards of Christian belief. The main speaking voice in the poem describes the woman sinking deeper into meditation and expresses for her her own questioning of the sacrifices required by devout Christian belief. But, after doubting the myths of various religions, by the third section the speaker is asking the antagonistic rhetorical question, "And shall the earth / Seem all of paradise that we shall know?" The implied answer is that when the human race puts away its belief in "mythy" gods, the earth will become paradise. But then the woman begins to object: she wants an "imperishable bliss", like Christianity promises its Elect. The main speaking voice replies with the shocking main theme of the poem: "Death is the mother of beauty." This statement of theme is a hyperbolic way of saying that everything humans experience and value exists in time and that fleetingness makes everything more valuable than it would be if it lasted unchanging forever. In the last three sections, the poet describes the beauties of earth as paradise. The final image of section eight is of pigeons descending "Downward to darkness, on extended wings," a peaceful acceptance of darkness and death, which it symbolizes. The critic Robert Buttel sees the poem as establishing the French painter Matisse as "a kindred spirit" to Stevens, in that both artists "transform a pagan joy of life into highly civilized terms."
"Sunday Morning" has rich patterns of imagery, but, unlike "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," Stevens' poem does not eschew theme words. Let's look at two image patterns and their associated themes. No image pattern is more prevalent in Western literature than that of light and darkness, and "Sunday Morning" develops that one fully and associates it with living and dying. Stevens' handling of the light-dark pattern, however, does not simplistically affirm life and shun death; in fact, accepting death as a natural part of life is the speaker's main theme. What would light be without darkness? The other pattern is that of "paradisal" images of eternal bliss and contrasting images associated with "earthly pleasures and pains."; "Paradisal happiness" and "Earthly happiness and suffering" work as fruitful theme words shaping these two strands of imagery.
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