The Problem of Obscurity in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens

Terry Teachout, a music critic, quotes a passage from the famous painter Fairfield Porter\u27s book, Art in Its Own Terms: Selected Criticism, 1935-1975: Some art has a very open meaning, and can be written about in terms of this meaning; but the chances are that if the meaning is the most interesting thing about it, it does not stand alone, it does not assert itself. It leans on what it means. An implied meaning is richer. When Teachout first read these words, he says, I immediately snapped to attention-it was as if an invisible man had clapped his hands next to my ear. These words-both Porter\u27s and Teachout\u27s-might well be spoken about Wallace Stevens..