Memories of Ischia

Eugene Berman
I believe this painting by Eugene Berman directly influenced the writing of canto XVIII of Wallace Stevens's The Man with the Blue Guitar (1937).
A dream (to call it a dream) in which
I can believe, in face of the object,

A dream no longer a dream, a thing,
Of things as they are, as the blue guitar

After long strumming on certain nights
Gives the touch of the senses, not of the hand,

But the very senses as they touch
The wind-gloss. Or as daylight comes,

Like light in a mirroring of cliffs,
Rising upward from a sea of ex.


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Document URL: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Stevens/ischia.html
Last modified: Tuesday, 30-Jul-1996 10:05:21 EDT