Summary

Stevens’s “Anecdote of the Jar” opens immediately with its titular jar and situates the jar in a setting designated by a proper noun – “I placed a jar in Tennessee” (1). Immediately after this specific placement of the jar, the speaker further clarifies the spatial relationship between the jar and its Tennessee setting. The mere placement of jar “made the slovenly wilderness / Surround that hill” (3-4).

In the subsequent stanza, the speaker continues to describe how the jar changes its surroundings. He reiterates his previous point that because of the presence of the jar on the hill, “The wilderness rose up to it, / And sprawled around, no longer wild” (5-6). He begins to describe the jar’s appearance more specifically, how it “was round upon the ground / And tall and of a port in air” (7-8).

In the final stanza, the speaker continues to describe...