Summary Poetry analysis ‘Anecdote of the Jar’ by Wallace Stevens

Anecdote of the Jar
Wallace Stevens, Poem analysis

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.



1. Content of the Poem I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
The poem starts off with the narrator telling about how
he placed a jar on a hill in Tennessee. And the jar caused the
It made the slovenly wilderness
rough wilderness to grow around the hill. Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
The wilderness grows more and more towards the jar
at the top of the hill. But now that it gets close to the jar, the And sprawled around, no longer
wilderness is no longer wild. The jar is described as round, tall wild.
and empty. The jar was round upon the
ground
And tall and of a port in air.
The jar became the ruler of all. The jar is described as
gray and empty, and unlike everything else in Tennessee, not It took dominion everywhere.
part of nature.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.


Wallace Stevens, one of the major poets of the 20th-century, wrote "Anecdote of the Jar" in 1918
while in the town of Elizabethton, Tennessee. The poem opens with an I-perspective description of an ac-
tion/event in the past. The individual tells about the time he had put a jar on a hill in Tennessee. Stevens