Estonia (or Esthonia) is the smallest of the Baltic countries. It is now considered to be one of Europe's hot travel spots, with its balance of traditional charm, modern attractions, and breathtaking landscape; but its past is filled with difficulty. At the time of Stevens's writing, Estonia was invaded by the Soviet Union as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that instigated occupation of several Baltic countries, including Latvia and Lithuania. Between attacks and deportation, Estonia lost hundreds of thousands of its people--almost 18% of the country's population. The first mass deportation was in 1941. Stevens's poem was written in 1942.
Significance to Stevens[]
Stevens mentions Esthonia in line 9 of "The Man on the Dump" (1942): "So the sun, / And so the moon, both come, and the janitor's poems / Of every day, the wrapper on the can of pears, / The cat in the paper-bag, the corset, the box / From Esthonia: the tiger chest, for tea" (5-9). Holly Stevens, Wallace's daughter, lends some insight into this poem, saying that it is based on a man who lived on a dump close to their home. The items that he gathers to himself hint that he is from Estonia, and many critics agree that, on one level, he represents the "cultural ethos" of those who have been overtaken by others (Longenbach 205). On another level, he stands for the poet who is true to his craft no matter what else is going on around him (207).
Some critics wonder if the use of Estonia, since it doesn't seem to have had other major significance to Stevens, was used for its phonetic properties. Estonia sounds similar to the final line: "stanza my stone" (46). Estonia may be echoing the original meaning of stanza, which was "a stopping place or room (a kind of very large box)," and its current meaning, a line of poetry or song. Just as Estonia was targeted at that time in history by the USSR, so are cultural remnants (especially poetry) often tampered with when being sublimated into another culture (Siraganian 11-12).
Sources and Further Reading[]
Wallace Stevens, by James Longenbach, on Google Books
Wallace Stevens's Fascist Dilemmas and Free Market Resolution, by Lisa Siraganian