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Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens

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A person sets a jar on a hill in Tennessee and observes how it transforms the surrounding landscape.

Poet
Wallace Stevens
Composed
1919 · Modernist
Core theme
Art
The PoemFull text

Anecdote of the Jar

Wallace Stevens, 1919

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.

Public domain

Sourced from Project Gutenberg

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§01Quick summary

What this poem is about

A person sets a jar on a hill in Tennessee and observes how it transforms the surrounding landscape. The wild, chaotic wilderness begins to arrange itself around this one simple, man-made object. The jar doesn’t grow or blossom like the plants do; it simply remains there, gray and bare, bringing a sense of order. Stevens uses this small moment to explore a larger question: what occurs when human-made objects interact with the natural world?

§02Themes

Recurring themes

§03Line by line

Stanza by stanza, with notes

  1. I placed a jar in Tennessee, / And round it was, upon a hill.

    Editor's note

    The speaker lets a jar fall onto a hill in Tennessee — that's all that happens, and it's intentionally simple. The repeated use of "round" has a childlike quality, yet it quickly establishes the jar's shape in our minds. The act of *placing* is crucial: it represents a deliberate, human touch within a natural setting.

  2. The wilderness rose up to it, / And sprawled around, no longer wild.

    Editor's note

    Now something strange happens: the wilderness, previously described as "slovenly" (messy, unkempt) in the first stanza, reorganizes itself around the jar. It "sprawled," which still sounds unruly, but it's no longer wild in the untamed sense. The jar has created a kind of order simply by being there. Nature is now defined by its relationship to this human object.

  3. It took dominion everywhere. / The jar was gray and bare.

    Editor's note

    "Dominion" carries a heavy connotation — it reflects the biblical directive for humans to have dominion over the earth. The jar dominates the scene, yet Stevens quickly diminishes any sense of majesty: it's gray and barren. This dominion lacks beauty or vitality. The jar prevails, but that victory feels rather grim.

§04Tone & mood

How this poem feels

The tone is cool and deadpan—Stevens discusses a concept that's philosophically vast (the relationship between art, humanity, and nature) in the most flat manner possible. There's a subtle humor to it, almost a shrug. The poem doesn't dictate how to feel about the jar's control, which adds to its unsettling nature. By the end, the tone shifts a bit towards the austere and even melancholic: the jar offers nothing in return.

§05Symbols & metaphors

Symbols & metaphors

The jar
The jar represents the order we create as humans—like art, civilization, or any other man-made object we place in nature. It's intentionally simple (neither a sculpture nor a monument) to illustrate that even the most unassuming item can change our perspective on the world around us.
The wilderness
The wilderness embodies untamed, chaotic nature — life that exists independently of human purpose or significance. It's labeled as "slovenly," reflecting a human perspective, which highlights the irony: we struggle to describe nature without applying our own classifications to it.
Tennessee
Tennessee is a distinct, tangible place in America, and that distinction is important. Stevens ties an abstract philosophical concept to a real landscape, indicating that the conflict between humanity and nature isn't just a theoretical notion — it manifests in the geography we can see.
Gray and bare
The jar's gray color and lack of contents suggest sterility. Unlike nature, which brings forth birds and bushes, the jar creates nothing. Its presence is real yet hollow — a reminder of how human order can structure the world without adding any richness to it.

§06Form & structure

Form & structure

Meter
iambic tetrameter
Rhyme
ABCB ABAA AABB

§07Historical context

Historical context

Wallace Stevens wrote this poem in 1919, and it was included in his first collection, *Harmonium*, published in 1923. Throughout his career, Stevens worked as an insurance executive in Hartford, Connecticut, while pursuing poetry as a side passion — this dual life fueled his interest in how imagination shapes meaning in a world that often seems indifferent. The early twentieth century was a time when American modernists grappled with the role of art and questioned whether it reflects reality or creates it. Stevens drew significant inspiration from Romantic poets like Keats and the philosopher William James. "Anecdote of the Jar" feels like a direct dialogue with Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," as both poems use a simple object to delve into how art and human perception can transform our surroundings. Additionally, the poem engages subtly with the American Romantic tradition of exploring the themes of wilderness and civilization.

§08FAQ

Questions readers ask

What is the poem actually about?

On the surface, a person places a jar on a hill. Beneath that, the poem explores how human creations — like art, objects, and ideas — bring order to nature and alter our perception of the world. The jar itself doesn't take any bold actions, but just by being there, it transforms the entire landscape around it.

What does the jar symbolize?

The jar is typically seen as a symbol of art or human creativity—the objects we create and introduce into the world. It may also represent civilization as a whole or the human mind's instinct to organize and categorize everything it comes across.

Why is the wilderness called "slovenly"?

"Slovenly" refers to being messy or untidy, and it's a distinctly human term to apply to nature. Stevens chooses this word intentionally to illustrate that our attempts to describe the natural world are inevitably colored by our human judgments. The wilderness isn't truly messy — it simply appears that way when compared to the jar's neat roundness.

Is the poem saying that human influence on nature is good or bad?

Stevens remains neutral, and that ambiguity is essential. The jar imposes order, which seems positive, yet it's also described as "gray and bare" and offers nothing in return — no birds, no bushes. The poem states the jar's control as a fact rather than a triumph or tragedy, allowing you to form your own feelings about it.

What does "It took dominion everywhere" mean?

The jar becomes the focal point of the landscape — everything is now understood in relation to it. "Dominion" references the Bible's Book of Genesis, where God grants humans dominion over the earth. Stevens uses that term to imply that positioning any human-made item in nature signifies an assertion of power, even if the item is merely a simple gray jar.

How does this poem connect to Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn"?

Both poems use a simple vessel to explore art's connection to life. Keats's urn is beautiful and timeless, conveying truth; Stevens's jar is gray, stark, and silent. While Keats celebrates art's power, Stevens takes a cooler, more skeptical stance — his jar asserts itself but offers nothing in return.

Why does Stevens repeat the word "round" so much?

The repeated use of "round" emphasizes the jar's key feature — its perfect, human-made shape. That roundness distinguishes it from the wild, untamed nature surrounding it. There's also a bit of irony here: Stevens is conveying a significant philosophical idea through the most mundane description of a jar.

What is the poem's structure, and does it matter?

The poem consists of three stanzas, each with four lines and featuring loose, imperfect rhymes like "hill" / "wild," "air" / "bare," and "everywhere" / "Tennessee." The structure is neat but not entirely precise—similar to the jar itself, which brings order without creating anything vibrant or full of life. These slightly off rhymes prevent the poem from feeling overly tidy, reflecting its mixed message.

Key quotes

Key quotes

“I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill.”
The poem's opening act — a deliberately plain, almost absurd gesture — sets up the central tension between human artifice (the jar) and the natural world. The casual, conversational tone masks how radical the claim is: that simply placing a man-made object can reorganize an entire landscape.
“It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill.”
The word **"slovenly"** is the poem's first value judgment, and it's a striking one: the wilderness is not majestic or sublime, but untidy and disordered. This reveals that the jar's presence imposes not just order but a human *aesthetic standard* on nature.
“The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild.”
Here the wilderness is personified — it "rose up" as if responding to the jar's authority — yet the result is submission: it is "no longer wild." The paradox is that the jar tames nature simply by existing, without any active force, which is Stevens's point about how art reshapes our perception of the world.
“It took dominion everywhere.”
This is the poem's most compressed and powerful statement, echoing the language of empire and sovereignty. The short, declarative line lands like a thesis: a single, small, man-made object can assert total conceptual control over a natural environment.
“It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.”
The poem's closing turn is a quiet but crucial qualification — the jar orders the world yet produces nothing living. Stevens reminds us that art's dominion comes at a cost: the jar is sterile, "gray and bare," fundamentally unlike the fertile, organic world it has reorganized.

Citation

Cite this poem

MLA

Stevens, Wallace. "Anecdote of the Jar." 1919. Storgy, https://storgy.com/poems/anecdote-of-the-jar-wallace-stevens/.

APA

Stevens, W. (1919). Anecdote of the jar. Storgy. https://storgy.com/poems/anecdote-of-the-jar-wallace-stevens/

Text source: en.wikisource.org

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