Diss.--Universität Wien, 1987.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.) in English--University of Maine, 2004. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-124).

This study examines representations of thinking and consciousness in the poetry of W.B. Yeats and Wallace Stevens. In discussing the processes of thinking in poetry, I have borrowed Ian Fletcher's term "noetics" which "names the field and the precise activity occurring when the poet introduces thought as a discriminable dimension of the form and meaning of the poem" (3-4). I have further sub-divided Fletcher's term into "noetics of form" and "noetics of figure" the first exploring the dominant modes of thinking which the poems imitate, the latter examining the images which are consistently used to represent consciousness and/or processes of thinking. In many ways, this study takes as its premise Stevens' theory of the poetic imagination as either ''marginal" or "central." I explore this theory of poetry in relation to a noetics of form and figure in the poetry of the "marginal"thinking Yeats and the "central" -thinking Stevens in order to consider the idea of consciousness as a container and of poetry as a process of containment. By understanding consciousness as a container of thinking, we come to see that human consciousness-and our ability to think metaphorically-virtually creates reality. This thesis is divided into two sections, "The Noetics of Form" and "The Noetics of Figure". Each section contains two chapters each on the poetry of Yeats and Stevens respectively. In the first section, I argue that the poetry of both Yeats and Stevens imitates a meditative mode of thinking. In Chapter One I explore Yeats's poetry as a dialectical mode of meditation. For Yeats, the process of containment is repeatedly undermined or postponed through an imitation of internal argument. His dialogues imitate an ongoing process of differentiation--a splitting of the objective and the subjective modes of thinking--in a struggle to enact containment through a transcendence or reconciliation of opposing lines of thought. In Chapter Two, I illustrate how Stevens's meditative poetry often imitates a process of thinking which is less determined and more observational than Yeats's. While there is still an implicit split between subjective and objective thought in Stevens' poetry, he more often imitates modes of thinking which recognize the co-dependency of human consciousness and objective reality, resulting in the imagined objective. Section II concerns the Noetics of Figure in the poetry of Yeats and Stevens, examining how their most dominant imagery represents a paradigm of human consciousness. In Chapter Three, I illustrate how Yeats's images suggest transcendence, a movement towards and beyond the margins of consciousness. I ground this discussion in Northrop Frye's view of images of ascent as being connected with an intensifying consciousness. Yeats's figures of mountains, trees, towers, and ladders represent consciousness, while his images of birds represent various forms of thinking within-and in an attempt to transcend--its limits. In Chapter Four, I look at Stevens's images of colour and shape as major noetic figures. These figures represent a movement towards the centre ofhuman consciousness, and a model ofconsciousness as an ever-expanding container of reality. In my concluding chapter, I look at two late poems from each ofthe poets in order to illustrate the contrasts and comparisons between these paradigms ofhuman consciousness. Though both Yeats and Stevens are concerned with a creating and created consciousness, Stevens' noetics offigure provide us with a theory ofpoetry that is a theory oflife, through which we come to see both poets as imitating a process of containment through the act of poetic composition. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study analyzes the Canadian poet, typographer, and translator Robert Bringhurst’s (b. 1946) extensive engagement with the poetry, poetics and metaphysical concerns of the American modernist poet Wallace Stevens (1879-1955). It asserts that Bringhurst’s poetry responds to Stevens’ poetry and poetics to a degree that has not previously been recognized. Although Bringhurst’s mature poetry—his works from the mid-1970s and after—departs from the obvious imitation of the elder poet’s writing that is present in his early poems, it continues to engage some of Stevens’ central concerns, namely the fertility of the liminal moment and/or space and a meditative contemplation of the physical world that frequently challenges anthropocentric narcissism. The dissertation proposes that Bringhurst shares Stevens’ desire to inscribe an authentic encounter between person and place. The first chapters establish the literary basis for the comparison of the poets’ works. The following chapters show how both poets draw on the symbology and metaphors of the Christian concept of the Sacrament in order to describe poetically the nature of the personally renewing experience of place. They examine poems from throughout Stevens’ career, including those that express a more determinedly materialistic vision, and the pervasive use of sacramental terminology in Bringhurst’s polyphonic poetry; such language is integral to Bringhurst’s efforts to describe a transformative experience of encounter with the physical world. The final chapters contend that Stevens’ and Bringhurst’s divergent visions of the ethical responsibility of poetry are shaped by their differing perspectives on the relation between the poem and the sacramental experience inscribed within it. The dissertation makes original contributions to the study of the poetry of both Bringhurst and Stevens. It demonstrates the significance of the inheritances of the Protestant religious tradition to both poets’ bodies of work, and it casts Bringhurst as a profoundly Stevensian author. A study of poetic influence, it attests to the vitality of Stevens and Bringhurst as ecologically oriented writers concerned with the meaning of place in North America. / Graduate / 2018-01-17

Thesis--Paris IV, 1973. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 535-553).

Thesis--Paris IV, 1973. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 535-553).

This thesis is divided into four chapters, the first of which is theoretical and synoptic. The method of chapter 1 is threefold. Firstly, an examination of the idea of the late career, including previous research on the subject, common perceptions and archetypes, and a consideration of the nature of artistic self-consciousness as it influences the late career. Secondly, a discussion of old age in literature, including the context of gerontology, our typically equivocal picture of old age as both decaying and spiritualized, and a consideration of the mode of creativity of the aged. Thirdly, an examination of literary "endings": the point at which the poet is faced with formal conclusions and "last things." A number of topics associated with or generated by the late career are considered, particularly the summational impulse, confrontation with death, and engagement with posterity: three perspectives supplied by the moment of ending. In the three chapters which follow, I examine the structure of the late careers of Hardy, Yeats and Stevens, in particular the points of crisis and self-renewal, and including in each case works which precede the final phase. The evolving attitude of each poet to old age is examined, and a number of topics which seem intrinsic to the late career: monumental intentions and their decay, the fate of the poet's work in posterity, the dividing of the mortal body from the poetic corpus, the old man's introjected sexuality, and the heightened dualism of old age. Finally, in each case the "final gestures" of the poet are considered: his attempts to confront the demands of the literary "ending. "

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