Poetry presentation; The Emperor of Ice-Cream

 Last week, I had a second poetry presentation in our English class.

This time I chose “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” by Wallace Stevens.

  

He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on October2, 1879.

He attended Harvard University as an undergraduate from 1897 to 1900.

After working briefly as a reporter for the New York Herald Times, he decided to study law.

He graduated with a degree from New York Law School in 1903 and was admitted to the bar the following year.

He practiced law in New York City until 1916 and he was also. Part of New York’s literary community.

Steven’s moved to Connecticut in 1916, having found employment at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., where he became vice president in 1934.

He died in Hartford, Connecticut, on August 2, 1955.

Here is the poem

 

I will introduce the setting of the poem.

The time is early 20th century and the place is the residence of a deceased woman in American city.

I think the speaker is not in the wake, he is more like omniscient perspective.

In the poem,  the speaker tells what will happen before and after the wake.

An old woman has died, and in the first stanza the speaker issues instructions to others for the wake.

In the second stanza, the speaker appears to be in a quieter room with the woman’s cold and dead body.

The visitors will occupy themselves mainly with socializing and having fun, not with mourning her death.

I found two poetry expressions.

First, I found alliteration in this poem.

Alliteration is the repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words.

• In Kitchen cups concupiscent curds
• Dresser of deal
• Her horny
• Let the lamp

I also found couplet which is a pair of lines with end rhyme.

The meter of the poem varies.

The last two lines of stanzas 1 and 2 each form a couplet, and the last line of second stanza repeats the last line of the first.

Analysis;

In this poem, the speaker seems to tell us that everyone shouldn’t do anything that would obscure reality and goon acting as they always have.

The woman will near everyday clothes and the boys will bring flowers wrapped in old newspapers.

Even though it is a wake, people will use the occasion to socialize and enjoy “concupiscent curds”, not pretending to mourn.

As for the deceased woman, let her be as she is now, not cover her cold feet with a sheet.

“Let the lamp affix its beam” means focus on life not death.

I think that “the emperor of Ice-Cream”is a symbol of death.

It’s said the only emperor is the emperor of  ice cream, it means only he is a ruler of the world.

We can’t hide away or avoid death in our life.

So the theme of this poem is about life and death.