Arabic word for “full moon of full moons,” and thus a traditional symbol used in Arabic for describing feminine beauty. In literature, Badroulbadour is the princess that Aladdin marries in The Story of Aladdin in The Arabian Nights. Stevens’s poem focuses on death and resurrection of the body.
References in Stevens's Poetry:[]
“The Worms at Heaven’s Gate,” Harmonium
Out of the tomb, we bring Badroulbadour,
Within our bellies, we her chariot.
Here is an eye. And here are, one by one,
The lashes of that eye and its white lid.
Here is the cheek on which that lid declines,
And, finger after finger, here, the hand,
The genius of that cheek. Here are the lips,
The bundle of the body and the feet.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Out of the tomb we bring Badroulbadour.
Explanation:
Blogger William A. Sigler provides a close reading of this poem and asserts that the reference to Badroulbadur is actually a connection to the word “Troubadour,” as popular term and topic in 1916, when the poem was written. The poem focuses on the death of the body with, as Eleanor Cook states, “a mix of emotion that includes tenderness and eschews the lugubrious” (53).
Reference[]
- Cook, Eleanor.A Reader’s Guide to Wallace Stevens. Princeton UP: Princeton, 2007. 53. Google Book. Web.
- Sigler, William A. Stevens Textplication 9: The Worms at Heaven’s Gate