In 1942, Wallace Stevens wrote a 650-line poem called Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, in which he defined poetry as "an interdependence of reality and the imagination as equals" (Glaser). He believed that a poet's words are of things that do not exist without the words, and that reality and imagination germinate together in the poet's work because of what his own language brings to its reference. In A High-Toned Old Christian Woman (1915), Stevens likens poetry to God and portrays them as equals - both works of fiction conceived in the minds of poets (Lancashire; Schwarz). The poem is a parody of religion, seen through an alternative fictional universe. The speaker in the poem addresses the Christian woman and confronts her with the idea of an alternative reality consisting of some sort of Mardi Gras or mummer's parade. Stevens proposes that poetry replace God, and suggests an alternative to prayers and hymns that celebrate Palm Sunday and Christ's entry into Jerusalem, suggesting an appreciation of the pleasure principle, of paganism, and implying that the more we deny that aspect of life, the more it asserts itself.
Stevens uses the dramatic powers of his words to suggest that the "supreme fiction lies in the difference between a wince and a wink" (Glaser). He even begins the poem with the words, "Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame," to emphasize the point. He establishes a tone which is derisive of the old woman's faith and suggests she construct a "baroque masque in a peristyle to embody the elaborate contortions of her Christian metaphysics," which he calls, a procession of "disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed, smacking their muzzy bellies in parade" (Glaser).
At the end of the poem, Wallace returns to his skepticism of the presence of her Christianity, and gets down to its roots (Glaser). With "Such a tink and tunk and tunk-a-tunk-tunk," Stevens' idea that the sound of words can "deepen poetry's spiritu...