The Rabbi is a recurring figure in Wallace Stevens' poetry. He is the presence of reason who stands between man and the rest of the world. He is scholarly, knowledgeable, secular, and not particularly priestly. [1] The Rabbi is called upon by Stevens as poet to lead him home again, metaphorically, when he has drifted to a barren or dark place where imagination no longer serves him much as the sun serves the spirit in "The Sun This March." Stevens writes, "The exceeding brightness of this early sun / Makes me conceive how dark I have become . . ." (1-2). This darkness is cold and "of winter's air" (9), and by the conclusion of the poem, Stevens calls upon his old friend to bring him home again: "Oh! Rabbi, rabbi, fend my soul for me / and true savant of this dark nature be" (11-12). [2]
Critic Michael Sexson makes a connection between Stevens' figure of the Rabbi and Heinrich Zimmer 's interpretation of the Jewish Parable of the Rabbi who dreams of a treasure hidden under a bridge in Prague. The Rabbi travels a long distance only to find the bridge guarded by a sentry who claims, jokingly, that he too dreamt of a treasure that he found behind the stove in an old Rabbi's home. The Rabbi returns home quickly and does find the real treasure that lies within his home. Zimmer believes that the realization of the true treasure that lies within can only be discovered after traveling far from home. [3] Stevens' Rabbi is the figure who consistently guides the poet home again to rediscover the treasure (imagination) that is within even during the poet's darkest moments.
Notes[]
1. Kronick 149-50.
2. Stevens in Kermode and Richardson 108-09.
3. Sexson 16-17.
References[]
Kronick, Joseph G. "Of Parents, Children, and Rabbis: Wallace Stevens and the Question of the Book."
boundary 2 10.3 (Spring 1982): 125-54. JSTOR. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.
Sexson, Michael. "The New Mythology of Wallace Stevens." Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association
34.1 (Winter 1980): 7-18. JSTOR. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.
Stevens, Wallace. "The Sun This March." Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose. Ed. Frank Kermode
and Joan Richardson. New York: Libary of America, 1997. 108-09. Print.