Pareto

Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian engineer, philosopher, economist, sociologist, and political scientist. His work focused on the study of individual choice and distribution of wealth in society. His work in sociology is collected in his best-known work, Trattato di sociologia generale (1916) (The Mind and Society, published in 1935), where he formulated the first cyclical theory of history.
==Significance to Stevens==
In Stevens's prose piece, The Necessary Angel, which includes his essay "The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words," he mentions a quote from Pareto's Trattato, "History is a graveyard of aristocracies." Stevens goes on to say that poetry can also be such a cemetery, but of nobilities: "There is no element more conspicuously absent from contemporary poetry than nobility" (35).
==Sources and Further Reading==
The Necessary Angel ebook
Wallace Stevens and the Apocalyptic Mode, by Malcolm Woodland
Pareto Wikipedia page