The Auroras of Autumn

The Auroras of Autumn (1950) is a poetry collection by American poet Wallace Stevens. The longest of the poems, the titular "Auroras of Autumn," is considered one of Stevens's best and most challenging poems. Stevens received the 1951 National Book Award for Poetry for The Auroras of Autumn.

In the first part of the poem "The Auroras of Autumn," Stevens likens the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, to a serpent hungry for a body made of something other than air and night sky. At the same time, the fields, hills, and pines—which Stevens describes as the serpent's "nest"—are the opposite of the serpent; they are "form gulping after formlessness."  The "skin" of the nest below the serpent wishes to disappear, while the serpent itself "flashes without the skin." The land and sky each vie for what the other has.

In the second part, the scene shifts to a deserted cabin on the beach. The cabin is white, as are the flowers that adorn its walls, though the flowers are "a white that was different, something else, last year or before, not the white of an aging afternoon, whether fresher or duller, whether of winter cloud or of winter sky." Stevens seems to say that the white of the flowers is a memory, while the white of the cabin signifies the impending winter. This is borne out when the seasons change from autumn to winter, and "darkness gathers though it does not fall," creating anticipation for what comes next. A man walks blankly on the sand, watching the Northern Lights above, "its polar green, the color of ice and fire and solitude." The man feels completely alone.



At the beginning of the third part, the speaker says, "Farewell to an idea" before reminiscing about "the mother's face." What follows is a series of descriptions of how memories are merely transparent impressions of things long gone, lacking the sensual power of the thing itself. The mother's necklace "is a carving, not a kiss"; her "soft hands are a motion not a touch." The speaker likens this to the way the Aurora Borealis reflects in the windows: "Upstairs the windows will be lighted, not the rooms."

The fourth part is structured much like the third, except now the speaker focuses on the father, who "leaps from heaven to heaven more rapidly than bad angels leap from heaven to hell in flames." This seems to be another reference to the Aurora Borealis, only instead of a serpent in a nest, the lights are a king sitting upon a throne. The speaker also introduces the idea of actors in a company wearing masks, which may stand in for humanity in large.

In the fifth part, the mother "invites humanity to her house and table." What follows is a description of a festival of actors, singers, musicians, and dancers. The idea of a theater company of performers standing in for humanity at large is extended when the speaker says, "What festival? This loud, disordered mooch? These hospitaliers? These brute-like guests? These musicians dubbing at a tragedy, A-dub, a-dub, which is made of this: That there are no lines to speak? There is no play. Or, the persons act one merely by being here."



The sixth part is a series of vivid descriptions of this theater in which man performs. The man from the second part—which scholars like Harold Bloom view as a stand-in for Stevens—opens the door to his house to find it in flames, "An Arctic effulgence flaring on the frame of everything he is. And he feels afraid." He is afraid not so much of the physical attributes of fire, but rather cowed by the enormity of the Aurora Borealis's light, for he is merely a puny "scholar of one flame."

In the seventh part, the Aurora Borealis is a symbol of the artist's imagination, "as grim as it is benevolent." Such is the power of this imagination that it "leaps through us, through all our heavens leaps, extinguishing planets, one by one."

The eighth section ponders the nature of innocence, concluding that it is of time but not a place. It is an idea that exists, but may only exist in the past, in memory. The speaker then concludes that the Aurora Borealis is "not a spell of light, a saying out of a cloud, but innocence," attaching metaphysical significance to a physical phenomenon.



The ninth section presents a mood that combines optimism and dread. The Auroras in autumn signify the coming winter and the death we are all fated to experience. Nevertheless, they are also beautiful, a shelter for imagination and a mother who reminds us of our former innocence, easing the transition into the cold and frightful winter.

In the tenth and final part, Stevens seems to summarize an individual's lifecycle as beginning as "unhappy people in a happy world," innocent of the terrors of the world but unfulfilled. Next, we are unhappy people in an unhappy world," disappointed by the world we discover, then, "happy people in an unhappy world," living in a state of denial about the world, followed by "happy people in a happy world," attending balls and festivals. And finally, once again, "unhappy people in a happy world" in old age, returning to the state of our innocent youth. As the Aurora blazes above the speaker, he prepares himself for death.

The Auroras of Autumn and its signature titular poem are some of the most beguiling yet beautiful poetry of the 20th century.