“Is This the Real Life or is This Just Fantasy”: Imagination and Reality in Stevens' "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction"

Abstract

In “Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction” (Notes), Wallace Stevens suggests that because we engage with our experiences in our minds, our experiences and our belief in them is thus fictitious due to our flawed perceptions. The “supreme fiction” is then something that is the fundamental ideal of our beliefs, and a theme that preoccupies Stevens through his mid to late career as a poet. Analysis of select cantos of the sizeable and formidable “Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction” would provide a clear example of Stevens’ vision of using his poetry to “capture the essence or the inner life of the experience” (Richardson 4).