"Final Dwarf"--addendum

Wallace Stevens

Yesterday in this space I mentioned a poem by Wallace Stevens, "The Dwarf," which offers an image of an old, old person--as you age, you gradually become that "final dwarf."

I couldn't find a copy of the poem right away, but looking online for a book of Stevens' poetry to buy, I realized that we already had one--the Library of America volume, Collected Poetry and Prose, 1997. Since the inception of the LOA, we've been buying each volume as it appears (about a dozen a year), so we have quite a stack now (jamming the shelves we set aside for them--shelves we never thought we'd fill).

Anyway, here's the poem as it appears in that volume (189-90). Oh, it first appeared in a collection called Parts of a World (1942).

The Dwarf

Now it is September and the web is woven.
The web is woven and you have to wear it.

The winter is made and you have to bear it,
The winter web, the winter woven, wind and wind,

For all the thoughts of summer that go with it
In the mind, pupa of straw, moppet of rags.

It is the mind that is woven, the mind that was jerked
And tufted in a straggling thunder and shattered sun.

It is all that you are, the final dwarf of you,
That is woven and woven and waiting to be worn,

Neither as mask nor as garment but as a being,
Torn from insipid summer, for the mirror of cold,

Sitting beside your lamp,s there's citron to nibble
And coffee dribble ... Frost is in the stubble.


Stevens (1879-1947) is not the easiest of poets to read, but the meaning is pretty clear here, isn't it? The final versions of ourselves ...

I also indicated in that post yesterday that I'd first encountered Stevens' idea of "final dwarf" in a story by Henry Roth (1906-95), whose novels I've admired. Can't forget that first one: Call It Sleep (1934). After that novel he virtually vanished--for decades.

Anyway, Roth published his story "Final Dwarf" in The Atlantic--July 1969--and it later appeared in the collection Shifting Landscape (1987).

Just now I went to one of our (too many) file cabinets, located my "Roth, Henry" folder, and saw that I'd torn the story from The Atlantic nearly a half-century ago ... see below.

So ... there you go ...