Music in Peter Quince

Wallace Stevens' poem offers an intriguing account of the story of Susanna besides it's vivid imagery and cringe inducing word choice, what I liked most about it was it's discussion of music and respectively its notions on beauty in this world. "Music is feeling, then, not sound" is a perfect characterization of what music should mean to us. Yes it is at its base sound but what would it be if there were no feelings provoked by it. Personally I listen to music because it makes me feel a certain way, a way that reflects the feelings I have inside me, life is music. This idea is furthered later in the poem when Stevens writes, "A breath upon her hand Muted the night.She turned--A cymbal crashed,And roaring horns." There is no sound at this point in the story, only the feelings the emotional reflection of how these sounds make us feel. A symbol crash communicates a kind of shock, and instantaneous fear that dissipates slowly. Stevens goes on to use more musical allusions in the poem writing, "Soon, with a noise like tambourines,Came her attendant Byzantines." Again this a perfect characterization of human action being illustrated by music. I can hear and see the maid dashing over with a kind of hurried and worried like rhythm in her step, the personification of music is profound in this poem. Stevens finishes of the poem by bringing music, beauty, and rememberance into one idea, Now, in its immortality, it plays On the clear viol of her memory, And makes a constant sacrament of praise." This idea that beauty exists not only in the moment it is witness but with a sense of eternity, like music, is a insightful notion about the human experience, even though those elders were just being dirty old men, Susanna's beauty can exist in a time beyond her own so that twenty two year old English majors can pick up on this description of true beauty without missing a beat.