Through his acquaintance with Witter Bynner and Arthur Davison Ficke at Harvard at the turn of the century, Wallace Stevens was introduced to the study of Eastern philosophy and culture. He became particularly influenced by Kakuzo Okakura's explanations of the philosophies of Zen Buddhism.
Kakuzo Okakura. The Book of Tea. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1906.
Wallace Stevens. "Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise." Poetry 8:4, Chicago, July 1916.
"Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise" attempts to confront a western audience with the moral world of the east.
The Twentieth Century: American Modernists:
Eastern Themes and Modernist Theater; Eugene
O'Neill
Thornton Wilder
William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore
E.E. Cummings and Gertrude Stein