Chapter 19 William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was born in 1883 in Rutherord, New Jersey, a town near the city of Paterson. A modernist known for his disagreements with all the other modernist, Williams considered himself as the most underrated poet of his generation. His reputation has risen dramatically since World War Ⅱ as a younger generation of poets testified to the influence of his work on their idea of what poetry should be. The simplicity of his verse forms, the matter-of-factness of both his subject matter and his means of describing it, seemed to bring poetry into natural relation with everyday life. He is now judged to be among the most important poets writing between the wars. His career continued into the 1960s, taking new directions as he produced, along with shorter lyrics, his epic five-part poem Paterson. The social aspect of Williams’s poetry rises from its accumulation of detail; he opposed the use of poetry for general statements and abstract critique.
Critical Perspectives
1.New Historicism
Paul R. Cappucci, in “A Libretto in Search of Music: The Strain of Collaborative Creation in William Carlos Williams’s The First President”, argues that throughout the 1930s and beyond, William Carlos Williams labored on a grand opera entitled The First President that “would”, as he wrote, “galvanize us into a realization of what we are today” (Many Loves). He portrays George Washington as a figure who transforms fear and anxiety into the creative leadership necessary to guide an unstable new country. Williams dreamed of Roosevelt attending his opera and thus fusing the past with the present. Such a project reflects Williams’s epic ambition to do something of national import. This paper documents Williams’s design for the libretto and his collaborative difficulties; it also contextualizes the project amid the numerous Washington celebrations that occurred throughout the 1930s. By examining the libretto in this way, the paper reveals Williams’s increasing investment in the project and ultimate identification with a troubled visionary who persistently overcame betrayals in an effort to help America realize its democratic promise.[1]
Daria Pa^rvu, in “Celebrating Modern America: William Carlos Williams and His Artist-Friend Charles Sheeler”, explores the relationship between William Carlos Williams and his artist-friend Charles Sheeeler and it also examines the extent to which Williams found visual sources of inspiration in Sheeler’s art. Williams praised Sheeler in several essays dedicated to his artist-friend for his ability to give the local a universal dimension. Williams, too, tried to emphasize the American vernacular by making use of common, ordinary things in his poems. Both Williams and Sheeler believed that the work of art should possess autonomy, it should have a rather objective than subjective character as well as focus on a more impersonal perspective rather than a personal one. Williams also agreed with Sheeler’s belief that a work of art resembled a machine which could serve as both model and subject for the painting and the poem.[2]
Milton A. Cohen, in “Stumbling into Crossfire: William Carlos Williams, Partisan Review and the Left in the 1930s”, argues that though actively involved in leftist causes and committees throughout the 1930s, William Carlos Williams had an almost uncanny knack for getting between warring factions and alienating power centers of the Left, particularly Partisan Review. This paper examines three such incidents: two in which PR intentionally humiliated the poet in 1936-1937, and one in which Williams joined, signed petitions, then resigned from several leftist splinter groups battling each other in 1939. Among the reasons considered for these mishaps are: Williams’s political naiveté about factionalism and editorial good faith; his skepticism regarding communism; his desire to be published in the leading leftist magazines; and the byzantine political alignments of the late 1930s. Ironically, Williams’s own poetry and fiction in the 1930s show a genuine empathy (without cant or cliché) for the working class—a quality that was more talked about than achieved in leftist circles.[3]
Miguel Mota, in “‘It looked perfect to my purpose...’ William Carlos Williams’s contact with the Spanish”, discusses the influence of Spanish literature on author William Carlos Williams’ literary style. Compromise made by Williams in the conflict between English and American literature using through his Spanish literary heritage; emphasis on the replacement of certain elements of American poetry with Spanish influences; emphasis on the Spanish American audience.[4]
Peter Monacell, in “In the American Grid: Modern Poetry and the Suburbs”, focuses on the work of four modern poets who expressed concerns over the suburbanization of natural and agricultural areas. He argues that, amidst the pre-World War Ⅱ transformation of the countryside, modern poets questioned the viability of the pastoral mode. These poets sought to determine whether new suburban environments could furnish the natural imagery and poetic individuality that this mode entails. He suggests specifically that William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens depict their domestic environments as varieties of suburbs. Their poems demonstrate that suburban Americans can locate or imagine pastoral spaces within residential grids. By contrast, the New York modernists Hart Crane and Louis Zukofsky perceived suburbs as insurmountable obstructions to the pastoral mode and poetic individuality. Modern poetry’s variety of responses to suburbanization can enrich our views of American poetry and pastoral writing.[5]
2.Cultural Study
William Boelhower, in “A Place from Which to Speak: The Gift Economy in Williams’s Poem Morning”, presents literary criticism on the central concern of the poem Morning, by William Carlos Williams, which addresses an Italian immigrant enclave on the margins of Paterson, New Jersey. Origin of Williams’s special interest in Paterson immigrants; cultural gap between the speaker of the poem and the Italians; reference to ashes in the context of the household economy of the immigrants.[6]
Stephen M. Park, in “Mesoamerican Modernism: William Carlos Williams and the Archaeological Imagination”, explores the popularity of Mesoamerican cultures in the U.S. in the 1920s and ’30s and considers how these cultures were adopted by members of the U.S. avant-garde as a way of distancing themselves from European traditions and linking themselves with thoroughly “American” art forms. This “Mayan Revival” flourished in the 1920s, particularly among architects who built neo-ruins throughout the U.S. After exploring this cultural context, Stephen then turns to the literary fascination with Mesoamerican cultures, seen most dramatically in the Maya-themed issue of Broom magazine, in which William Carlos Williams’s The Destruction of Tenochtitlan first appeared. In his quest for an “indigenous” American art, Williams frequently echoed the popular culture’s fascination with “reviving” native civilizations. However, Williams’s vision was a far more pessimistic one, and the archaeological remains of fallen civilizations of the Americas provided a mordant critique of U.S. greed and consumerism in Williams’s own day.[7]
3.Translation Study
Zhaoming Qian, in “ William Carlos Williams, David Raphael Wang, and the Dynamic of East/West Collaboration”, presents on the collaborative translation project of William Carlos Williams and David Raphael Wang on the poem The Cassia Tree. It mentions that the poem imputes the virtual silence and scrutiny of the authors to the subject of China. However, the authors state that the poem is not a translation to the version of Arthur Waley but rather a re-creations in the American idiom, which is dedicated to the poetic career of William Carlos Williams.[8]
4.Anthropological Study
Joshua Schuster, in “William Carlos Williams, Spring and All, and the Anthropological Imaginary”, examines the contexts of an “anthropological imaginary” that inform a close reading of William Carlos Williams’s Spring and All(1923). It seeks to expand the associations of modernism and anthropology from the typical conflation of these terms with the poetry of T. S. Eliot and anthropologist James Frazer by linking Williams’s interests with Franz Boas, the most established anthropologist in the United States at the time. Williams’s focus on the local is similar to Boas’s stress on site-specific observation. But Williams’s local is the result of a pattern of dislocation in modernity, which Williams incorporates in his poems and turns back against the disembodied scientific language of anthropology that cannot record the participant-observer’s disruption and desire.[9]
5.Comparative Study
George Monteiro, in “The Existence of an American Venus: William Carlos Williams versus Henry Adams”, discusses the similarities in the novels of American historian Henry Adams and William Carlos Williams. Influence of Adams’s The Education of Henry Adams on Williams, White Mule; reference to Williams’s comparison of the birth of his female to that of Venus.[10](https://www.daowen.com)
Robert Kusch, in “‘My Toughest Mentor’: William Carlos Williams and Theodore Roethke(1943-1944)”, explores the relationship between Theodore Roethke and William Carlos Williams as writer and mentor; examples of Roethke’s works; reputation of Williams in the field; impact of the relationship on the career of both poets.[11]
6.New Criticism
Linda Funkhouser and Daniel C.O’Connell, in “‘Measure’ in William Carlos Williams’s Poetry: Evidence from His Readings”, discusses the poetic style in William Carlos Williams’s poems The Botticellian Trees and The Catholic Bells; relationship among pausing, phrasing, syntax, image patterns and rhetorical structure in the poems; use of American idiom and rhythm of speech; visual impact and sound effect of the poetry; summation of measurements for both poems.[12]
【注释】
[1]Cappucci P R. “A Libretto in Search of Music: The Strain of Collaborative Creation in William Carlos Williams’s The First President”. Journal of Modern Literature, 2013, 36(2):80-104.
[2]P^arvu D. “Celebrating Modern America: William Carlos Williams and His Artist-Friend Charles Sheeler”. Revista Transilvania, 2017(11/12):61-67.
[3]Cohen M A. “Stumbling into Crossfire: William Carlos Williams, Partisan Review and the Left in the 1930s”. Journal of Modern Literature, 2009, 32(2):143-158.
[4]Mota M. “‘It looked perfect to my purpose...’ William Carlos Williams’s Contact with the Spanish”. Journal of Modern Literature, 1993, 18(4):447.
[5]Monacell P. “In the American Grid: Modern Poetry and the Suburbs”. Journal of Modern Literature, 2011, 35(1):122-142.
[6]Boelhower W. “A Place from Which to Speak: The Gift Economy in Williams’s Poem Morning”. Paterson Literary Review, 2005(34):36-45.
[7]Park S M. “Mesoamerican Modernism: William Carlos Williams and the Archaeological Imagination”. Journal of Modern Literature, 2011, 34(4):21-47.
[8]Qian Z. “William Carlos Williams, David Raphael Wang, and the Dynamic of East/West Collaboration”. Modern Philology, 2010, 108(2):304-321.
[9]Schuster J. “William Carlos Williams, Spring and All, and the Anthropological Imaginary”. Journal of Modern Literature, 2007, 30(3):116-132.
[10]Monteiro G. “The Existence of an American Venus: William Carlos Williams versus Henry Adams”. Journal of Modern Literature, 1996, 20(2):248.
[11]Kusch R. “‘My Toughest Mentor’: William Carlos Williams and Theodore Roethke(1943—1944)”. Journal of Modern Literature, 1989, 16(1):161.
[12]Funkhouser L, O’ Connell D. “‘Measure’ in William Carlos Williams’s Poetry: Evidence from His Readings”. Journal of Modern Literature, 1985, 12(1):34.