Wallace Stevens' Biography.

Essay by tom00207High School, 11th gradeB, December 2005

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Wallace Stevens wrote most of his poems from the turn of the century to the 1950s. During this time there were two major world wars. These wars took the lives of millions of people. With these tragedies a lot of artists and poets started to question the importance of religion in the modern era, and lost belief in it. Wallace Stevens was one of these poets, and felt that you should enjoy your life in the here and now and not waste time living for an afterlife.

There are many things that happened in Wallace Stevens's life to make him question religion, and decide just to enjoy his life in the here and now. When he was a child, almost everyone was religious. This was mainly because most people did not live very long lives. This made people more religious because life was so short that they would try to make sure that they would make it into heaven after they die.

However when Wallace Stevens reached his adulthood there were new technologies and the life expectancy was higher than before. Now that people had a longer life on earth there was less need too worry about an after life. Another factor in making Stevens not religious was his job, outside of writing poems. His main job was not as a writer, he was a lawyer. Being a lawyer can require you to tell lies, which is a sin, so to be a good lawyer you couldn't be very religious. Also he made good money being a lawyer, and most poets who are poor tend to be religious because they see it as a way of saving them and helping them. A wealthy man like Wallace Stevens did not need to turn to religion to save him. Another big reason...