Explication of "Sunday Morning"

Explication of “Sunday Morning” Robert Pasell In Wallace Steven's poem, "Sunday Morning" the idea of religion as it relates to reality is explored through the mind of a woman. It is not through the woman’s ‘religious voice’, but the voice of agnosticism, in her mind, that the poem is narrated. The poem is a debate within her head, between her agnostic voice and her religious voice on the perception of divinity. Her agnostic voice questions religion, in which a problem of faith in the world is shown. It’s shown through the woman’s agnostic thoughts that those who believe in a creed that is not from an immediate perception of the visible world are living in illusion, and this illusion can make them unhappy. Through this agnostic ideal, religion is a form of illusion based on what is not visible and real. Death is shown as an absolute of human existence, and that the knowledge that death ends all, stimulates the awareness of beauty. In the woman’s thoughts, it is shown that peopl!

e should accept this condition and shed the illusion of religion and in this acceptance free themselves to love the world around them, and find paradise in this world. By giving the agnostic side the duty of narration and the religious side a duty of quest

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In the religious voice, a question is posed towards the agnostic doctrine. Then, the sky was an embodiment of heaven and which give it meaning. The religious voice questions the agnostic doctrine again, "She says, ‘But in contentment I still feel / The need of some imperishable bliss.

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WORKS CITED Stevens, Wallace. While trying to make sense of an allegiance with a dead icon, this voice questions why can't she find salvation in the world itself. / The day is like wide water, without sound, / Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet / Over the seas, to silent Palestine,”(Abcarian, pg 324) Through this dreamlike journey to Palestine, the examination of her relationship with religion will serve as a lesson. Stevens uses this switch to show the agnostic doctrine as superior to religion. Through the descriptions of divinity as "silent shadows and dreams," they are shown as insubstantial and unable to convey any sense of relief from death's approach. It’s aging that turns her thoughts to death and motivates her thoughts of divinity. Through the discussion in the mind of a woman, the two voices within her debated on the merits of religion and agnosticism. In this "imperishable bliss", the religious voice denies death, which is what creates beauty within human's view of the world. The very fact that all things are mortal, life is shown as wonderful, but this in itself doesn’t allow for an "imperishable bliss. They had Jove, whom the!

y created in their minds, and who filled their lives with meaning, "Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth" (Abcarian, pg 325). Through this question we see the fault of religious doctrine. In the beginning of the poem, it is Sunday morning and the woman, through whose awareness the question of religious faith is to be examined, is not at church.

Approximate Word count = 1419
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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