The Narrative Impulse in Stevens’s Poetry: ‘Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks’ and ‘Mrs. Alfred Uruguay’

Abstract

Narrative is both the representation of external events and the telling of those events. My interest in narrative derives from my belief that we make sense of our life by ordering it and giving it shape. The stories we tell ourselves provide continuity among the concatenation of diverse episodes in our lives, even if our stories inevitably distort and falsify. Each of us is continually writing and rewriting the text of our life, revising our memories and hopes, proposing plans, filtering disappointments through our defences and rationalizations, making adjustments in the way we present ourselves to ourselves and others. To the degree that we are self-conscious, we live in our narratives – our discourse – about our actions, thoughts and feelings.