Wallace Stevens is known for his philosophical meditations on the dual nature of existence through his poetry. According to Stevens, poetry should be about neither the body nor the mind, but rather “an interdependence of imagination and reality on equals.” It is quite difficult to connect the two concepts since they are on completely opposite poles of the human psyche. The affiliation between imagination and reality is what Stevens explores and attempts to define and explain: "Stevens' poetry is at once surreal (philosophical understanding for the lost) and real (the practical conclusion that Stevens may be as lost as anyone else ” (Zarzicki 12). Through the use of natural imagery and contemplative language in his two poems, “The Poems of Our Climate” and “The Snow Man,” the intricate and twisted dualism of human existence becomes understandable. Say no to plagiarism -essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get an original essay The intricate duality of the physical and the metaphysical is depicted in "The Poems of Our Climate". scene through the use of pure and serene words, such as "bright", "clear", "snowy", "white", "newly fallen", "cold" and "porcelain" illustrates a wonderfully silent and pristine world due of its dissociation from human existence. However, this atmosphere is not ideal for him as complete detachment is not desirable: “Pink and white carnations – one desires much more” (6-7), “Here the object – a vase of pink and white carnations – promises an idealization, and almost realizes it, only to then cause dissatisfaction” (Smith 47). There is both a fascination and a revulsion towards a world untouched by humans. Stevens' choice of diction provides the scene with beauty and purity but also apathy and disgust, which exemplify the conflicted and disconcerting relationship between imagination and reality. In the second stanza, Stevens shows the impossibility of reality without imagination: “in a world of white, a world of clear, bright-edged water, yet one would want more, one would need more, more than a world of white and snow ”. perfumes" (14-17). Even though the human imagination can create deformities and complications on its own, it is still considered unpleasant and unlivable. The phrase “smells of snow” is contradictory since snow contains no odor and the “world of white” is empty and has nothing to show. There is no pleasure provided to the human senses in this world, so it is not satisfying or true. Stevens further explains the disgust of a pure world in the final stanza by stating, “There would still remain the mind that never rests, so that one would want to escape…the imperfect is our paradise” (18-21). Human existence requires a constant fluctuation between imagination and reality to function. Neither sector can be fully understood or understood, they simply both must be present in some form. Stevens further states, “The imperfect is so hot in us” (24). The presence of the word “warm” directly contrasts the images of cold winter in the first two stanzas of the poem, which further exemplifies the paradox of life: “Given our insatiable desire, the nature of our never-resting minds and our inability of if the words are right, we have only one option: to embrace the imperfect as “our paradise”. And once we have embraced the imperfect as our paradise, its bitterness becomes ever more compelling. "The imperfect is so hot in us" that it itself becomes a sort of insatiable desire. Making mistakes, Stevens explains, is what it means to have a human mind. And the workings of the mind provide its pleasure” (Skorczewski 103). He concludes the poem by statingthat the imperfect “resides in imperfect words and obstinate sounds” (25). Words come from the imagination, but are used to describe aspects of reality. Although such words are “imperfect,” in the sense that they cannot fully unify imagination and reality, they are nevertheless crucial to a functional human existence; therefore reality and imagination must be used simultaneously to enable a desirable life. While “The Poems of Our Climate” promotes the intertwining of imagination and reality, “The Snowman” suggests the complete detachment from the imagination and the active mind. As seen previously in “Poems of Our Climate,” Stevens uses natural imagery in “The Snow Man” to describe a pure, serene winter environment: “snow-encrusted pines… ice-capped junipers… rough spruces in the distant shimmer” ( 1-4). He insists that one must “have a winter mind,” a mind free from any subjectivity or heat of the senses: “he accepts and enjoys this naked scene, and there is nothing special about the place of his experience, or itself itself to experience is there” (Cook 48). The mind is active and continually adding, which is what influences human perception: "winter words for winter matter, as elegant as any decoration, engage our feelings as directly as the image can... engage our minds" ( Tindall 23). To establish a winter mind, you need to banish the imaginative mind and focus only on the concrete, emotionless aspects of the physical world. The images are dramatically simplified and toned down in the second half of the poem as the sensory richness deteriorates and the mind becomes colder: «In the noise of a few leaves, which is the noise of the earth, full of the same wind blowing in the same place naked" (9-12). Stevens' description of the poem's scene is austere and subdued, which is necessary to establish a winter mind. The final stanza gives a twist to the poem as a whole. Stevens introduces “nothingness,” a revelation of nothingness in which he evokes winter. In this verse “there are two types of nothingness: 'the nothingness that is' and 'nothingness', which is the absence of something. The greatest lack is this last: the absence of imagination in the man who 'sees nothing that is not there'” (Oster 159). When one stops creating the world one perceives, the world loses its meaning, which Stevens structurally portrays as the poem ends once the creative principle of the speaker's imagination has disappeared. Through the placement of the word “the” before “nothing” and “nothingness”, the concept is conceptualized, and affirms but limits the process of decreation: “He (the speaker) has become the snowman, and knows the winter with a mind of winter, knows it in its most rigorous reality, stripped of every fantasy and human feeling. But at that point, when he sees the winter scene reduced to an absolute fact, as an object not of the mind, but of the perfect perceptive eye that sees "nothing that is not there", then the scene has become "the nothing that is". ” (Package 68). Through this poignant ideology, Stevens untangles the paradoxical mix of human existence, allowing the reader to better understand the dualism of perception. Stevens's language in “The Snow Man” is as demanding as the poem's opening words , "One must," forcefully prepare the reader for what is to come. However, Stevens does not intend to advocate anything; he intends to suggest that the reader stop and observe his own mind and try to discover the genuine satisfaction of the physical world outside of imagination: “the only life worth living is the one generated by the imagination, not the scientific and emotionless mode that most people are forced to adopt…this hypothesis may seem ironic If the reader is.