The title of Wallace Stevens' poem "Shades of a Williams Theme" implies that he intends to comment, possibly celebrate, and almost certainly d explore potential distinctions and variations. available in William Carlos Williams' poem entitled "El Hombre". Stevens includes "El Hombre", in its entirety without the title, in the first four lines of his poem with the implication (again based on the, at worst, neutral title of Stevens' poem as well as the seemingly inclusion tributary of “El Hombre”). Hombre") that his reworkings and explorations of his colleague's play will retain its essence and, presumably, will not meet him with much, if any, antipathy. The title, however, proves misleading and the following verses from Stevens seems to be less a nuanced exploration of Williams' poem than a critique of what he sees as its flaws: namely the sentimentality, anthropomorphism, and romantic detachment of the narrator which is present especially in the first two lines Say. no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay It is particularly the first stanza of Williams' poem that Stevens takes issue with, and he does so, at least in part, through his second stanza Stevens focuses on two phrases, "shine alone" (3) and "lend no part" (4), which close the second stanza of Williams' poem and uses them as points of reference. access to the poem. He quotes the two sentences directly, elevating them to the first words of his next two stanzas, although in doing so he also very deliberately changes their meaning. The first line of Stevens' composition, "Shine alone, shine naked, shine like bronze." » (5) seems, aptly, to satisfy the expectations of the title while also being characteristic of Stevens's playful perspectivist aesthetic tendencies (perhaps reminiscent of 'Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird'); beginning with the two-word phrase taken directly from Williams' work, Stevens continues to expand it into a richer, more textured imperative description of the same "ancient star" (2) addressed in Williams' poem. Nevertheless, the next two lines that make up the remainder of Stevens's first stanza diverge from a simple variation into what appears to be an invective response to the opening lines of Williams' poem: "It's a strange courage/you give me, ancient star” (1-2). Stevens seems concerned that Williams is somehow anthropomorphizing the star, which appears to be the rising sun, and instilling in it the ability to give courage. He says of the sun that it must shine as something which "reflects neither [his] face nor any inner part of [his] being" (6-7) and, ultimately, "like fire, which reflects nothing" (7). Stevens's deliberate dissociation from the sun (as a substitute for nature) reflects his belief that nature must be understood without embellishing it; that things of nature should not be used as a means to achieve the triumphs or despairs of humanity. Whereas in Stevens' “The Snowman,” it is only with “a spirit of winter” (1) that one can hear “the sound of the earth” (10) without being distracted by “ some misery in the sound of the wind” (8), just as Williams’s sun, in Stevens’ conception, must reflect “nothing that is there” (The Snowman, 15) to be truly apprehended. With the entirety of Stevens' first stanza in mind, the variations in his first line (which continues and ends in the third with "shine like fire") read less playfully and more like a take of slow and deliberate distance by..