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Masculine Fecundity And ‘Overinclusiveness’: Imagery Of Pregnancy In Wallace Stevens’ Poetry, Brian Glaser

English Faculty Articles and Research

This article reflects on the imagery of pregnancy in the poetry of Wallace Stevens. It notes that the decision of Stevens to change the use of imagery of pregnancy indicates something about a development in his inner life. The images of his later poems show a diminishment of his earlier tendency to associate birth with death which is a sign of his increasing tolerance of the envious desire to be pregnant. The imagination of Stevens matured over twenty years and the changes in images of pregnancy are a measure of that change.