THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

STUDIES IN THE THEORY OF FICTION

Time cannot exist without a soul
(to count on it).

ARISTOTLE

a more severe,

More harassing master would extemporize
Subtler, more urgent proof that the theory
Of poetry is the theory of life

As it is, in the intricate evasions of as,
In things seen and unseen, created from nothingness,
The heavens, the hells, the worlds, the longed-for lands.

WALLACE STEVENS