SINCE THESE MEDITATIONS originate in a public address delivered in Hartford, Connecticut, in the month of November, and since I always work from poetry outward towards my topic, Wallace Stevens’ late poem “The Region November” would seem an apt place to start. Stevens delivers a mournful poem in these twelve lines, situating us exactly where we tend to find ourselves in the American Northeast in November: in the middle of an autumn marked by the stark sounds of the soon-tobe-bare trees in the north wind. Here we are “again,” his speaker says in a lilting language that echoes “the treetops, as they sway” (CPP 472), in a familiar season amidst familiar sounds. Stevens’ speaker aches, and we ache with him, in an effort to wrest knowledge, perhaps a secret kind of knowledge, from the wind in his poem. Yet, as the trees continue “Saying and saying” as they sway, we recognize with him the impossibility of ever truly being able to decode meaning in the text that is the natural world, which is “So much less than feeling, so much less than speech” (CPP 473, 472). Stevens can only travel the distance from the sound of the north wind, with which he begins the poem, to the intensification of the same sound at its close; the trees and wind sound “deeply and loudly” early in the poem, and by its end only “Deeplier, deeplier, loudlier, loudlier, / The trees are swaying, swaying, swaying” (CPP 472, 473). If lyric poetry can, as Stevens shows in “The Region November,” situate us in the moment in which we find ourselves, it can also transport us to other times and places. So, by encountering another poem, Stevens can place us in the fullness of midsummer. I cite the first of ten cantos of his beautiful long poem “Credences of Summer” (1949), so that we can reflect on the ways he transports us to another season:

中文翻译：

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史蒂文斯如何将我们转变为音乐读者

由于这些冥想源于 11 月在康涅狄格州哈特福德发表的公开演讲，而且由于我总是从诗歌向外转向我的主题，华莱士史蒂文斯的晚诗“十一月的地区”似乎是一个合适的起点。史蒂文斯用这 12 行诗表达了一首悲伤的诗，将我们置于美国东北部 11 月我们往往会发现自己的地方：在一个秋天的中间，北风中即将光秃秃的树木发出刺耳的声音。在熟悉的季节里，在熟悉的声音中，我们“又来了”，他的演讲者用一种轻快的语言说，在熟悉的季节里，随着“树梢的摇摆”（CPP 472）回响。史蒂文斯的演讲者疼痛，我们与他一起疼痛，努力从他诗中的风中获取知识，也许是一种秘密的知识。然而，当树木在摇摆时继续“说和说”，我们与他一起认识到不可能真正解码自然世界文本中的含义，即“远不如感觉，远不如言语” ”（CPP 473, 472）。史蒂文斯只能走一段距离，从他开始诗歌的北风的声音到结束时同一个声音的加强；树木和风在诗的开头发出“深沉而响亮”的声音，而在诗的结尾只有“更深，更深，更响，更响，/树木在摇摆，摇摆，摇摆”（CPP 472, 473）。如果抒情诗可以像史蒂文斯在“十一月的地区”中展示的那样，将我们置于我们发现自己的时刻，它也可以将我们带到其他时间和地点。因此，通过遇到另一首诗，史蒂文斯可以将我们置身于盛夏的丰盈之中。