"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is a poem written by Wallace Stevens, a 20th-century American poet known for his modernist style and innovative use of language. The poem is a celebration of the ordinary, everyday pleasures of life, particularly the simple joy of eating ice cream.
The poem begins with the speaker urging the reader to "Call the roller of big cigars, / The muscular one, and bid him whip / In kitchen cups concupiscent curds." This opening line establishes the theme of indulgence and pleasure, as the speaker is calling for someone to bring out the best, most luxurious treats. The imagery of "big cigars" and "muscular" ice cream makers suggests a sense of opulence and extravagance.
The next stanza describes the setting of the poem, describing a group of people gathered in a room and preparing to enjoy their ice cream. The speaker describes the setting in vivid detail, using words like "bananas, splits, / Strawberries, cream, / Chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter / Mints, gum, and bubble gum!" to paint a picture of a rich and varied dessert spread.
The poem reaches its climax in the third stanza, where the speaker introduces the titular "Emperor of Ice-Cream." This mysterious figure is described as "white as an angel, / Naked, except for the girdle of grass." The imagery of the angelic, naked emperor suggests a sense of purity and innocence, as well as a connection to nature and the natural world.
The final stanza of the poem returns to the theme of indulgence and pleasure, as the speaker urges the reader to "Take down this book, / Dial the speckled phone." The speaker is inviting the reader to join in the celebration of ice cream and the simple pleasures of life.
Overall, "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is a celebration of the ordinary, everyday joys of life, particularly the pleasures of food and indulgence. Stevens uses vivid imagery and language to paint a picture of a lavish dessert spread and the mysterious, angelic emperor who presides over it. The poem serves as a reminder to appreciate and savor the simple joys of life, and to indulge in the things that bring us pleasure and happiness.
The Emperor of Ice Cream Study Guide
Summary There is some excitement in an impromptu or last-minute invitation to what is apparently a celebration. Entering his seventies, he began to write a poetry of late old age, in which a sense of the disembodied, the purely mental, gave rise to a discourse that had grown newly austere, solemn, and strange even to its author. GradeSaver, 30 May 2017 Web. The last two lines of the stanza are more obscure: ''Let be be finale of seem'' sounds like a request for things to be as they are, not as they appear to be. However, they have a second symbolic meaning as a romantic gesture.
The Emperor of Ice Cream by Wallace Stevens
Chicago Bibliography Course Hero. If the lamp is lit, what is left of life is apparent in the cold physicality of the woman's remains and the illuminated notion that the "only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Hamlet says this line to his uncle Claudius. It's not clear who the speaker is telling to "call the roller of big cigars," unless it is a shout to the world in general someone, somewhere may know who that roller is. He is both alluding to the fact that he recently killed Polonius and also threatening his uncle, whom he is planning to murder. For so far as we can say, it describes a funeral-an angry, happy, sad, joyous paradoxâin which mourners at a wake are called to order by the writer. Short Book Summaries Sites with a short overview, synopsis, book report, or summary of The Emperor Of Ice Cream by Brian Moore.
Poetry of Wallace Stevens The Emperor Of Ice Cream Summary
The second stanza, on the other hand, represents death; it is set in the old woman's bedroom. The speaker of the poem describes putting a sheet over the face of the dead body, even if her feet poke out at the bottom. And there was one final, magnificent turn to his development. This creates the uncomfortable but unavoidable parallel between the ice cream in the first stanza and the dead woman's cold, dead feet in the second. The word ''wenches,'' for instance, is an interesting choice that might suggest young women, women of lower social classes, or even sex workers.
The Emperor Of Ice Cream Short Summary
These orders suggest the idea of simplicity, the funeral being organised in a modest and cheap way, because the woman was poor and her death should not reflect anything else than her simple past way of living. Style of ''The Emperor of Ice-Cream'' Much of ''The Emperor of Ice-Cream'' relies on connotation. The speaker leaves them uncovered, refusing to shy away from the unpleasant reality of death. He came slowly to a mastery of language, form, and style that revealed a mind like a solar system, with abstract ideas orbiting a radiant lyricism. He goes on to say that if the sheet does not cover her feet, that is okay: people will simply better understand the finality of her death. Lesson Summary ''The Emperor of Ice-Cream'' is one of the most famous poems by Wallace Stevens. Mariani persuasively numbers Stevens among the twentieth-century poets who are both most powerful and most refined in their eloquence, along with Rilke, Yeats, and Neruda.
The Emperor Of Ice Cream Summary and Analysis (like SparkNotes)
It is associated with both life and death, because this element is tasty, transitory and cold and it can represent joy and cellebration. What kind of A wake is being held. That party in the kitchen is populated by "wenches," young girlsâor in an archaic usage, wanton women or prostitutesâand boys in courting mode who carry flowers wrapped in papers with information from last month. An embroidered sheet is taken from an old dresser to cover the dead body of a woman, but it is not long enough, and leaves her knobby feet exposed. The second stanza of the poem is set in a bedroom, which represents death. The title of the poem and its repeated final line also link ice cream symbolically with death: the only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream, this cold substance that evokes ideas of death and endings. Long may he rule! This theme of sensuality is placed in opposition to the morbidity of death in the second stanza.
The Emperor of Ice Cream âThe Emperor of Ice
Therefore, imagination is the ruler of all things. What rules the scene, moreover, is sexual excitement whipped up in the kitchen where more than ice cream is happening. The dual stanzas represent a juxtaposition between the illusionary nature of rituals and the realities of death. The poem ends by re-asserting the supremacy of ice cream and the pure, present reality it represents. However, having faced the dead body, the speaker seems to realize he must choose life over death, must eventually return to the ice cream party, even though life is naturally gaudy, crude, and full of animalistic desire. It was published in 1922 as part of Harmonium, Stevens' first poetry collection.
