SOURCE: "The Imagery of Saint-John Perse's Neiges," in PMLA, Vol. LXX, No. 1, March, 1955, pp. 5-18.

In the following essay, Knodel offers a close reading of Neiges to demonstrate Léger 's ability to convey "the most intimate of his feelings " through language that seems impersonal and objective.

The most significant studies to date of Saint-John Perse approach his work "extensively," keeping the poet's total output in the foreground. Commentary on individual poems is not entirely lacking, especially on Anabase and Vents, but nothing approaching exhaustive textual analysis of any one poem has yet been attempted. The present study has been undertaken in the belief that an intensive approach to a small segment of Perse's work may supplement and give sharper relief to the insights of more general studies and perhaps lead some readers more directly to the actual text of one of the unquestioned major poets of our...