The Annotated Bibliography of the Poem ‘The Man with the Blue Guitar’

Works Cited

Dertz, Cody. “Poetic Difficulty in Wallace Steven’s: MAN WITH A BLUE GUITAR XXII”, The Explicator.( 2017): 157- 159. 11 February 2020

The poem uses the blue guitar to represent concepts of imagination, reality, interpretation, and principality in an antagonizing yet interdependent manner. One of the arguments that stuck out was that poetry does and should not exist outside of reality. The poem suggests that things come into being only through the creative act. That reality can change into imagination (Dertz)depending on one’s feelings towards it and that when one rules out an existence, the imagination suddenly becomes cold. The author also suggests that the mind of man is supreme and has the power to rule the world (L 360). This is proved in the poem where. In the poem, the world is seen as a central composition in which we live, see and feel ourselves continually (OP, 64); this shows the interdependence of reality, imagination, and interpretation in our daily lives. In the poem, the tune is defined as existential space (the fact), while the guitar is the creative act (CP, 167), showing the interdependence of reality and imagination. The poem speaks of the poet balancing the world on his nose (CP, 178), thus exhibiting a kind of supremacy over the world. This poem sheds light on how we should relate to the world through living in it, sensing it, and feeling it; however, social media has destroyed social relationships because people prefer chatting online than face to face. Due to detachment from reality, people who spend long hours on social media suffer mental and physical health conditions such as depression, loneliness, mental illness, and eating disorders; this is proved in the poem where the poet says detachment from reality makes the imagination grow cold..