Qui fait fi des joliesses banales

"Qui fait fi des joliesses banales," which translated from the French means "who ignores trivial prettiness" appears in Stevens' poem "The Latest Freed Man" (Parts of a World). In this poem Stevens seeks to overthrow the "doctrine" of experience in favor of fresh natural apprehension, a vision of being which is "to be without a description of to be." This transformative viewpoint empowers the "freed man" to see the world differently, himself at the center, where everything is "more real" than when viewed doctrinally. From this vantage point:
 It was everything bulging and blazing and big in itself,
 The blue of the rug, the portrait of Vidal,
 Qui fait fi des joliesses banales, the chairs.
Vidal (a possible reference to Anatole Vidal, Stevens' book dealer, as well as a name associated with "vitality" or "life"), then, "ignores trivial prettiness," suggesting that, like the "freed man," he is more concerned with fundamental vivacity of the sort previously lauded in the poem. The whole poem, in fact, directs us away from the contrived and constructed toward an authentic and spontaneous approach to life, one free of limiting concepts that filter the "blazing" immediacy of existence.