Quote #119

In being more than an exception, part, Though an heroic part, of the commonal. The major abstraction is the commonal, The inanimate, difficult visage.

More from Wallace Stevens

  1. The major abstraction is the idea of man And major man is its exponent, abler In the abstract than in his singular, More fecund as principl…
  2. What chieftain, walking by himself, crying Most miserable, most victorious, Does not see these separate figures one by one, And yet see onl…
  3. He is and may be but oh! He is, he is, This foundling of the infected past, so bright, So moving in the manner of his hand. Yet look not at…
  4. It is of him, ephebe, to make, to confect The final elegance, not to console Nor sanctify, but plainly to propound.
  5. My dame, sing for this person accurate songs.
  6. The old seraph, parcel-gilded, among violets Inhaled the appointed odor, while the doves Rose up like phantoms from chronologies.
  7. Apotheosis is not The origin of the major man. He comes, Compact in invincible foils, from reason, Lighted at midnight by the studious eye,…
  8. The bees came booming as if they had never gone, As if hyacinths had never gone. We say This changes and that changes. Thus the constant Vi…

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