Wallace Stevens - Tapa dura

Wallace Stevens, who died in 1955, was one of the most original, prolific, serious, and rewarding of twentieth-century American poets. This is a detailed critical study of his poetry, identifying its concerns, from the point of view of a convinced admirer. Lucy Beckett presents Sevens as a contemplative poet, engaged on a long enquiry into the nature of the relationship between the creative imagination and the world it illuminates and recreates. Steven's achievement is seen as one of the great monuments in English of the endeavour to find and sustain a connection between poetry and belief.

Lucy Beckett lives in Yorkshire and was educated at Cambridge University. For many years she was a professor of literature at Ampleforth Abbey. Her books include In the Light of Christ, a comprehensive study of the Western literary tradition; The Time before You Die, a novel about the English Reformation; and A Postcard from the Volcano. These have been warmly praised on both sides of the Atlantic. She is married and has four children.