Wallace Stevens
The poet Wallace Stevens is said to have been baptized a Catholic during his last days suffering from stomach cancer. This account is disputed, particularly by Stevens's daughter, Holly, and critic, Helen Vendler, who, in a letter to James Wm. Chichetto, thought Fr. Arthur Hanley was "forgetful" since "he was interviewed twenty years after Stevens' death." In his response, Chichetto noted that Vendler ignored "the testimony of Dr. Edward Sennett (in charge of the Radiology Dept. at St. Francis Hospital when Stevens was admitted both times) and the Sisters with whom he talked in 1977 (and later) who believed Fr. Hanley's account."
Read more about this topic: Deathbed Conversion, Suggested Deathbed Conversions
Famous quotes by wallace stevens:
“If it were lost in Übermenschlichkeit,
Perhaps our wretched state would soon come right.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Lantern without a bearer, you drift,
You, too, are drifting, in spite of your course;
Unless in the darkness, brightly-crowned,
You are the will, if there is a will,
Or the portent of a will that was,
One of the portents of the will that was.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“How has the human spirit ever survived the terrific literature with which it has had to contend?”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“It was the custom
For his rage against chaos
To abate on the way to church,
In regulations of his spirit.
How good life is, on the basis of propriety,
To be followed by a platter of capon!”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)