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About this quote

What does it mean?
This excerpt describes a complex dance between opposing principles and indulgence.
In plain terms
It suggests that even our flaws and desires can be transformed into art or ritual.
What can you take from it?
Conflict and indulgence create cultural forms.

Where it applies

  • art analysis
  • social observation
  • philosophy

Putting it to work

  • study cultural rituals
  • find value in conflict

Questions to consider

  • How do we refine our flaws?
  • Is indulgence a creative act?

Another view

The imagery is obscure and hard to apply directly.

More from Wallace Stevens

  1. Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus, The conscience is converted into …

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  2. This will make widows wince. But fictive things Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.

    Permalink to quote #11
  3. The day of the sun is like the day of a king. It is a promenade in the morning, a sitting on the throne at noon, a pageant in the evening.

    Permalink to quote #8

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