Editing Wallace Stevens (section)

===Last illness and death===
According to Mariani, Stevens had a large, corpulent figure throughout most of his life, standing {{convert|6|ft|2|in|m}} tall and weighing as much as {{convert|240|lb|kg}}. Some of his doctors put him on medical diets.<ref>Mariani, Paul. ''The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens'' – April 5, 2016. Pages 152–181.</ref> On March 28, 1955, Stevens went to see Dr. James Moher for accumulating detriments to his health.<ref name="Peter Brazeau 1983">Peter Brazeau, ''Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered'' (New York: Random House, 1983), 289.</ref> Moher's examination did not reveal anything, and he ordered Stevens to undergo an x-ray and barium enema on April 1, neither of which showed anything.<ref name="Peter Brazeau 1983"/> On April 19 Stevens underwent a G.I. series that revealed [[diverticulitis]], a [[gallstone]], and a severely bloated stomach. Stevens was admitted to St. Francis Hospital and on April 26 was operated on by Dr. Benedict Landry.<ref name="Peter Brazeau 1983"/>

It was determined that Stevens was suffering from [[stomach cancer]] in the lower region by the large intestines and blocking the normal digestion of food. Lower tract oncology of a malignant nature was almost always a mortal diagnosis in the 1950s. This was withheld from Stevens, but his daughter Holly was fully informed and advised not to tell her father. Stevens was released in a temporarily improved ambulatory condition on May 11 and returned to his home to recuperate. His wife insisted on trying to attend to him as he recovered but she had suffered a stroke in the previous winter and was not able to assist as she had hoped. Stevens entered the Avery Convalescent Hospital on May 20.<ref name="ReferenceA">Peter Brazeau, ''Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered'' (New York: Random House, 1983), 290.</ref>

By early June he was still sufficiently stable to attend a ceremony at the University of Hartford to receive an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> On June 13 he traveled to New Haven to collect an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Yale University.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> On June 20 he returned to his home and insisted on working for limited hours.<ref>Peter Brazeau, ''Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered'' (New York: Random House, 1983), 291.</ref> On July 21 Stevens was readmitted to St. Francis Hospital and his condition deteriorated.<ref>Peter Brazeau, ''Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered'' (New York: Random House, 1983), 293.</ref> On August 1, though bedridden, he revived sufficiently to speak some parting words to his daughter before falling asleep after normal visiting hours were over; he was found deceased the next morning, August 2, at 8:30.<ref>Peter Brazeau, ''Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered'' (New York: Random House, 1983), 296.</ref>  He is buried in Hartford's [[Cedar Hill Cemetery (Hartford, Connecticut)|Cedar Hill Cemetery]].{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

Mariani indicates that friends of Stevens were aware that throughout his years and many visits to New York City, Stevens was in the habit of visiting [[St. Patrick's Cathedral (Manhattan)|St Patrick's Cathedral]] for meditative purposes. Stevens debated questions of [[theodicy]] during his final weeks with Fr. Arthur Hanley, chaplain of St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, where Stevens spent his last days suffering from stomach cancer and was eventually converted to Catholicism in April 1955 by Hanley.<ref>[http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Stevens/conversion.html Letter from Father Arthur Hanley to Professor Janet McCann, July 24, 1977]</ref><ref>Maria J. Cirurgião, "[http://www.cuf.org/Laywitness/Online_view.asp?lwID=1277 Last Farewell and First Fruits: The Story of a Modern Poet] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110121105730/http://cuf.org/Laywitness/Online_view.asp?lwID=1277 |date=January 21, 2011 }}." ''Lay Witness'' (June 2000).</ref> This purported [[deathbed conversion]] is disputed, particularly by Stevens's daughter, Holly, who was not present at the time of the conversion, according to Hanley.<ref>Peter Brazeau, ''Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered'', New York, Random House, 1983, p. 295</ref> The conversion has been confirmed by both Hanley and a nun present at the time of the conversion and communion.<ref>Letter from [[James Wm. Chichetto]] to Helen Vendler, September 2, 2009, cited in a footnote to "[[Deathbed conversion]]".</ref><ref>Mariani, Paul. ''The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens'' – April 5, 2016. Pages 398–408.</ref> He had a long correspondence with Catholic nun, literary critic and poet [[M. Bernetta Quinn]], whose work he loved and with whom he was close.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Ripatrazone |first=Nick |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2xkjp9p?turn_away=true |title=The Habit of Poetry: The Literary Lives of Nuns in Mid-century America |date=2023 |publisher=1517 Media |isbn=978-1-5064-7112-9 |chapter=Sister Mary Bernetta Quinn: Woman of Letters |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2xkjp9p.7}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Mary Bernetta Quinn Papers, 1937-1998 |url=https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/04307/ |access-date= |website=Wilson Special Collections Library of UNC-Chapel Hill}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Sister Mary Bernetta Quinn papers |url=https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/1438 |url-status= |access-date= |website=Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University}}</ref> Stevens's obituary in the local newspaper was minimal at the family's request as to the details of his death. The obituary for Stevens that appeared in ''Poetry'' magazine was assigned to [[William Carlos Williams]], who felt it suitable to compare Stevens's poetry to [[Dante]]'s ''[[Vita Nuova]]'' and [[John Milton|Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]''.<ref name="Mariani, Paul 2016. Page 405">Mariani, Paul. ''The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens'' – April 5, 2016. Page 405.</ref> At the end of his life, Stevens had left uncompleted his larger ambition to rewrite Dante's ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' for those who "live in the world of [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]] and not the world of [[Plato]]."<ref>Thomas Grey. ''The Wallace Stevens Case''. Harvard University Press. 1991. Page 86.</ref>