What do we need to know about Stevens?
First and foremost he's a romantic
A romantic: venerates nature, like Emerson (American) and Colebridge (European)
deifies the mature of the creative: the poet has god-like powers
tends to be a secular humanit- "In the absence of God we have the world."
"In the absence of God we have ourselves." The human being is central
Theme of all his poems- interaction of reality v. imagination

The North represents reality and winter and the South represents the imagination and summer.
Spring and autumn represent the "gray area." They are not quite real or part of the imagination, though the spring tends toward reality and the autumn tends toward the imagination

"The sharp flash, the vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X." Motive for Metahphor. The X is a metahpor for reality.
"Poetry is the subject of the poem." Man with the Blue Guitar