Daoist and Chan Aesthetics in Wallace Stevens’s World of Tea

Abstract

This paper argues that Stevens’s two poems about tea, “Tea” and “Tea at the Palaz of Hoon”, are wealthy of Chan Buddhist and Daoist messages. Stevens’s passion about tea and tea culture has so far escaped attention from critics. In the light of Stevens’s letters and biography, this paper will show Stevens’s craze for tea all his lifetime. By analyzing the poetic style, images and phonetic features of two poems, this paper will elaborate how Stevens’s orientalist aesthetics and philosophy of Taoism and Chan are embodied in the two early poems.