Abstract:
The distance between the physical and metaphysical, the real and unreal cannot be measured, but it is precisely a preoccupation with this distance that creates the poems and fictions of Stevens and Anday. The focus of my thesis is the journey the poets take into the grey zones of life and poetry. The relationship of the poet to the world around him, to death, change and pleasure are subject matters that both poets are preoccupied with, thereby raising the status of the poet to the "artificer of life." In their works, the multifaceted layers of reality and history are brought into question only to be debunked and replaced. My thesis is an attempt to explore this tendency towards destruction and recreation, the breaking down of boundaries to be replaced by new ones which in their turn will be broken down.
