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Russian word referring to a fortress or fortified structure. 

Stevens’s References:[]

Architecture, line 52 “the kremlin of kermess” (kermess being an outdoor festival or fair in Dutch and Northern German provinces)

Stevens’s poem “Architecture” refers to the poet building his poetry throughout his lifetime. The first stanza describes the physical fortress of his poetry; the second contemplates what topics will be there; the third considers what those who arrive should wear; the fourth describes the creation of such a place. The fifth stanza focuses on the constellation considerations (the sun, the moon, east, west, north, south). 

Lensing states, “If Stevens’ fidelity to the real emanated from his personal predilection and from the immediate environment around him, the troubling issues of that fidelity also fell into much wider patterns of Western thought” (31). Lensing connects Stevens’s philosophy in the poem “Architecture” to Simone Weil’s concepts about de-creation and the state of reality. Weil explains in her text La Pesenteur et La Grace that “decreation is making [a] pass form the created to nothingness” (qtd in Lensing 31). See also, Wikia entry for Chastete.

References:[]

Lensing, George S. “The Way of Ignorance.” Wallace Stevens and the Seasons. Baton Rouge: Louisiana UP, 2001. 20-48.

Kremlin

Kremlin

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