Stevens' The Death of a Soldier

The Nihilistic Imagination

May 15, 2008 Linda Sue Grimes

Wallace Stevens' use of the imagination in poetry reveals the unchartered territory that readers have come to expect from the modernist mindset.

Steven’s poem, “The Death of A Soldier,” consists of four verse paragraphs (free verse stanzas). Each verse paragraph diminishes in line length, giving the poem a consistent appearance on the page, while visually implying an added dimension of meaning, that deteriorates into the nihilistic imagination.

First Verse Paragraph: “Life contracts and death is expected”

In the first verse paragraph, the speaker makes a general statement, “Life contracts and death is expected.” This statement pulls together many possible threads for comment: how does “life contract”? maybe life expands and thus “death is expected”? or not expected? who is likely to be concerned with this statement? where does life go when it contracts?

The potential is infinite, as the reader’s imagination begins immediately to play over the possibilities, and Stevens would approve, because he was a consummate believer in the imagination.

But then the speaker rapidly becomes specific—this contracting of life and expecting death is like the fall season or like when a soldier dies. The fallen soldier here provides a turn for the speaker, who will not be celebrating a soldier’s bravery, but merely exploring the possible nihilism associated with any death.

Second Verse Paragraph: “He does not become a three-days personage”

The speaker continues to explore the death of a soldier, but only in the most general terms. The particular soldier this speaker is examining is the ordinary soldier who dies without any tribute. He is not mourned, nor given a military funeral. He is the unknown soldier who dies unseen, unheard on the battlefield. No one may even know he died until years later.

This soldier “call[s] for [no] pomp,” and the speaker implies that this is the majority; this soldier is “the soldier” whose death “impos[es] no separation.” But the speaker knows that the reader will find fault with this designation, because no matter how chaotic the battlefield, not matter how long it takes, the soldier’s family, including his military family and country, will ultimately acknowledge him even if it is only through the monuments to the “Unknown Soldier.”

There will, in fact, be much pomp and tribute dedicated to this fallen soldier, and his personage will swell well past “the three days.” Thus, the nihilistic portrayal of the unsung hero is negated in the reader’s mind by the end of the second verse paragraph. So the speaker has to bounce back somehow. How can he do that?

Third Verse Paragraph: “Death is absolute and without memorial”

Because the speaker has set up an adverse reaction in the reader’s mind, he now must somehow answer the conflict. He does so by making a blunt, even highly uncouth declamation: “Death is absolute and without memorial.”

This remark cannot begin to assuage the reader’s objections, yet there it is as bald as an eagle. To support this bold claim, the speaker likens the event to the wind in autumn, “when the wind stops.”

Fourth Verse Paragraph: “When the wind stops and, over the heavens”

Sensing the futility of his attempt to salvage his earlier audacity, the speaker stutters, repeating “When the wind stops,” and then awkwardly adds, “. . . over the heavens, / The clouds go / nevertheless, / In their direction.”

The speaker abandons his claims, so to speak, to the winds. But he has ended on a note that his reader can accept: the clouds do, indeed, move with the wind.

The copyright of the article Stevens' The Death of a Soldier in Poetry is owned by Linda Sue Grimes. Permission to republish Stevens' The Death of a Soldier in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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