<P> Stevens began writing the poem in December 1936, not long after his completion of the poetry collection Owl's Clover in the spring of that year . "The Man With the Blue Guitar" became his most successful long poem to date, and William Carlos Williams wrote at the time that he considered it one of Stevens's best works . </P> <P> Michael Tippett based his guitar sonata, The Blue Guitar (1984), on selected stanzas: 19, 30, and 31, from the poem . It is one of the most integrated examples of combining image, music, and poetry . Other composers have made similar attempts but with much less convincing results . </P> <P> John Banville's 2015 novel The Blue Guitar draws its title and epigraph from the poem . </P>

Wallace stevens the man with the blue guitar meaning